Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - The Lionizing of Charlie Kirk With Ryan Grim, Plus Malik B on Viral Comedy

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Van and Rachel welcome ‘Counter Points’ cohost Ryan Grim to discuss his and other platforms’ coverage of Charlie Kirk in the days since his death, before comedian Malik B joins to talk how he literally fought for a role in ‘Creed,’ and his new Hulu special, ‘LOL Live With Malik B.’  (00:00)  Intro (10:21)  Having uncomfortable conversations (33:27)  Ryan Grim joins the show (1:27:28)  OG Corner: Van Jones & Stephen A. Smith (1:54:12)  Democratic leadership (2:05:33)  Ghostface Killa and Infinite Coles (2:16:49)  Malik B joins the show (2:56:10)  ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ returns Hosts: Van Lathan Jr. and Rachel Lindsay Guests: Ryan Grim and Malik B Producer: Donnie Beacham Jr. Video Supervision: Chris Thomas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Her learning is on as I Van Lankton Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. I want to say something real quick before you get started. It's a lot going on. But I want to shout out. Everybody out there that's still fucking.

Where are we going with this? I'm not going to take very long, but I heard a very funny story from somebody that I know. Sorry, I almost made a joke. Tell me. Well, you were like, see, I'm becoming you. And I don't know if I like it. You go,

I'm not going to take very long. Fucking. Okay, keep going. I got the animal pack for that, though. You take the animal pack, you're good. The animal pack helps. Animal pack. I don't want to give Animal Pack like a free advertisement,

but you take the animal pack. You know what used to be good for that? The Lexa Pro. Really? Lexa Pro have you out here. The thing... Oh, it makes you go longer. But even...

Because I thought it hindered you, but... It did. But even like... It's funny, all of my SSRI people out here know this. The first, I'm just going to, I keep it real. There's a lady in the room, but I got to keep it real if we're going to talk about this. The first nut that you bust after the SSRI gets into your system is crazy. When you're on the SSRI, the first one, because it's like,

because you get, it's like your body doesn't want you to do it. It's like the Alexa Pro is like, you shouldn't be doing this. You should be focused on your mental health. That's what the Alexa Pro is saying to. You're like, ah, and then it happens. And then after a while you get used to it. So everybody out there that just started their Alexa Pro or the SSRI, and they're like, yo, man, this is, just stay with it.

Stay with it. It doesn't, or change drugs, change dosages. It can work. But then when you're off of it, I feel now, now I feel. I feel everything. I'm crying more. I'm being, yeah, everything's. We feel, we understand on the podcast.

We on a roller coaster with you. Go ahead. I told the story. Sorry, sorry. Sorry. So a friend of mine was like, I'm a grand unc now. I'm not unc anymore. I'm actually grand unc.

I'm not auntie. I haven't reached that stage. You're not. You're not there. You're not there. But you're a young vibrant woman. God, I'm not trying to like put people out there.

But like a friend of mine went to a 40th birthday party with some people from college. And I'm like, they're aunties. Oh, my God. I just don't feel like I. I mean, it's all about how you feel, right? I just don't feel like I give that energy. Shit. You know what I mean?

Some people act older. Old bitch. Some people act older than their age. Some people act younger. I guess that's me. Maybe I'm immature. I'll take a dig at myself. But I don't feel auntie.

Go ahead. Sorry. Graham, I'm not going to look, I'm not going to do it. Because, you know, I just don't know when it starts to happen when you start like giving pieces of candy to people. and all of that stuff. Like, I don't know.

Pepperments. Yeah, peppermints and stuff like that. Or now I feel the need to provide food for people. People come over, you hungry, you need something? I don't know what I'm. No, that's Southern hospitality. Probably. Okay, so story though.

A friend of mine hits me up. And the reason why I say I'm grand unc is because this is one of my perceived little homies, but he's like 35. So I was his perceived big homie. When I was 35, 36, and he was just starting off in the town and he was 23 or 24 or whatever. Now, he's still my, but he's 35 and he's still hits me up or whatever. He's very successful. He's 35, though.

He's like 35, 36 years old. And he still asked me about different stuff. I'm like, God, damn. So his little homies or whatever are probably like 23 or 24, I'm their grand unc. Okay. That's the thing. So he hit me up and he goes out. He's getting to age where he's getting sick of everything.

And the girl comes over to his house. And she is in her 20s. You know, she's in her 20s. And the Charlie Kirk thing, like, appears on the television. And she says something. She goes, I don't know why we can't just remember him fondly or, like, whatever. Is she black? I'm assuming she was black.

I don't know. Okay. You never know. And he goes, man, get out. Is this his girlfriend? No. Oh, okay. Okay.

All right. He goes, man, I just told her, I looked at her. He said, I've been waiting for this. He just went. I just told her, I was like, man, nah, man, you got to go. It's funny. I was like, no, you like, he's like, bro, I promise. He was like, she was just like, I just don't know why we can't just put everything

that he said to the side and just, He goes, nah, man, you got to get out. And he was having this conversation because what he was telling me, he was like, if this was five or six years ago, the fucking would have been the most important thing. That's what would have been important. Just, all right, cool, whatever. We change the subject. Man, you don't know what you're talking about.

Roll up, have a drink, change the subject, whatever. But he was like, now he was just like, it's not. It's like now I was like, I don't want to have this feeling. Go ahead. I don't like him. he's cool he's a great guy I know he's no yeah I haven't met him yet this is what I'll say

I do want to give credit to the people out there yeah where are we getting to this that are just are still fucking the loneliness the people that are out there that are just saying you know what I'm gonna go out here and I'm a fuck and I'm gonna fuck people that I disagree with.

I'm going to fuck people that I'm just going to prioritize the fucking. So, because a lot of us are off that. A lot of people are like, we're not going to be,

but for you, the fuckers out there, I just thought I give them a shout out to start the podcast. Okay. Anything else? Hold on.

See, this is important. This is important. So I want you guys to think about the different here. I start this podcast off in love talking about the fuckers out there, my homeboy who took a stand. Rachel, you start this podcast off dissing your friends acting like they're a bunch of old white spinsters.

Spinsters! That's Spinster! Well, no, then I would be one too. I would never say that. But you're not a Spenser. You already got married. By the way, Spencer, this is Gilded Age talk. I don't know. That's what I want to talk about. I, well, no, no, no. I love, love that you were into the Gilded Age.

And if y'all aren't watching the Gilded Age, you've got to get on it. I was late to it. Vans in the middle of it. I'm so jealous. He sent me a clip yesterday talking. His finger was in the screen the entire time pointing at what he, what he, it was her expression. Her expression and what it was really saying. And I was like, you have no idea where this story is going to go.

You guys got to get on it because we got to develop a segment here. It's so good. Okay. So I just got, you guys, I got to tell you guys what I was watching. I was watching at that point. What was it? Miss Brooks. Miss Brooks. So Miss Brooks was at the opera.

Which the opera is a big thing. Okay, that's the first time we had gone to the opera in the Gilded Age. For me, that's the first time they had been there. So, okay, the opera is basically becomes a character, but keep going. She's at the opera. All right. This guy wants to marry her. He's a lawyer.

From her town. You have to give that, you have to let the people know. He's from her town. he helped her settle her father's estate, which it turned out her father had no money. She didn't know that. He died. And then they live in Pennsylvania.

And then all of a sudden he moves to New York. So to set the stage, he's moved to New York. For her? Well, he didn't say he moved for her. He moved to New York for her. But he moves to New York and he has, doesn't know anybody. He has no ties to the community, to society. He's just a lawyer, which I say that because being a lawyer doesn't hold the weight in this society.

Keep going. And so he gets there. He likes her. I could tell that he liked her when he was telling her that her father had had no one. I know. I can tell. Yeah. And she comes to the opera and she sees him in another opera box in another box.

Crazy. Right? She sees him in another opera box with a different woman. And she can see that he's making his way into society. Through women. Through women. And he's looking. over, she's looking over at him with this look of longing.

Like this entire time the dynamic was, was he good enough? Because her aunts don't want her to go with him because they don't think he has enough standing. Correct. This entire thing was, was he good enough to court her and for her to marry him? But now she's looking at him and she's like, wait a second. There's a lot of women out here in society that aren't controlled by their aunts. They like being around him.

They like him. He's a nice guy. he's kind of becoming the man. He's a handsome guy. Handsome. The whole nine and she's looking at him like, what the fuck is going? She didn't like it. Yeah, because she doesn't, she didn't grow up in this society.

So she doesn't adhere to the rules. That's her whole thing. She can see through what the rules are because she didn't grow up in that place. And so her aunts who did, who have the money, are telling her what she should and shouldn't do. And that also is a thing. Like she's caught up in this place of what I really want to do, what I feel, what I feel is right, versus what I'm supposed to do from society. Gilded it. It's so good.

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Tap this ad to learn more about trim fire, including important safety information. All right. We got a lot to get to on the show today. We have Ryan Grimm from Breaking Points on the show. Which we talked about him last time. Addressed the comments. You were hurt as an avid listener to breaking points. And I'm happy that he's agreed to come on the podcast.

didn't think it was going to happen. See, and there's the thing that I want the thought warriors to understand. First of all, I don't know what's going on in the head of the thought warriors. I promise my therapist not to go on Reddit. I haven't been on the Thought Warriors Reddit in months. Well, hasn't been months. It's definitely. It's been a while.

It's been a while. I haven't been on there for a long time. And it's just, it's changed. It's changed me. Good. It's changed me. Good, good. So, but I will say this.

To the, yeah, I did. Talked about the therapy. I will say this, to the thought words to everybody else's listens. It is not uncommon in the spaces that I consume on YouTube for people to be interviewed or talking to people that they either disagree with or have criticized. Yeah. So when I'm watching some of the stuff, the Pierce Morgan show has become, I'll never go on there again. So stop reaching out. I'm not going on Pierce Morgan.

Morgan ever again. So don't reach out no more Pierce Morgan show. I appreciate you guys bringing me on there. I appreciate having gone on there the one time I went on there. I'll never do the Pierce Morgan show again. The Pierce Morgan Show is an abomination. We'll never go on there again. Good for that. But a lot of these

other places and a lot of these other things that go on. Like these people come in and they go on there and they face the people. They face the Piper. They face the criticism. So for us, I hope that the audience will be that they would find it palatable for us to have some voices on here that we disagree with

that look at things differently, for us to not be criticized for quote unquote platforming certain ideas. And I hope that the audience would trust us and that we will be up to the task of having conversations with people that are diametrically opposed to some of the things that we are. Well, I actually think the audience will. I think that there becomes a level where you don't, we talked about this before on the podcast. We've want more voices.

We've reached out to Republican voices. When we were talking about gerrymandering in Texas, we reached out to Texas Republican senators. No one wanted to come on. We want to have that discourse into those challenging conversations. And I think that makes it very interesting for our audience as well.

That's not for us. That's just like that's what we should be doing. That's what we should be bringing to higher learning. But I think that there can be a line that's crossed where I do say you shouldn't platform that person. And I've talked about it. I'd never want to have Candace Owens on here. Even though I think what she's doing lately is interesting,

I would never want to have her on here because I don't want to have people on who just lie, who just say stuff that's just not true. And I don't think that that's helpful for the audience. I don't think that that allows us to have good discourse, have a good interview conversation. I think that it feels performative. I'm not going to have a performative conversation.

I'm just not. Okay. So let me tell you where I disagree. and we can get into the show because this actually gets into the Kimmel thing. This is where I disagree. And this is kind of what we're dealing with right now with the way that people are approaching some of the attacks on free speech that exists right now. What I have to acquiesce is that there was a movement on the left to... depower speech that they didn't like.

Okay? That movement was to me appropriate, and I'll tell you why. It is something, first of all, let me not say that there was a movement on the left. That's too specific. There was a movement, and it has been, always has been, from people who don't like speech to say, this is what I don't want to hear. And because I don't want to hear it, I am going to use the market to influence your ability to say it. So, for example, if Bill O'Reilly goes on his show and goes, I don't think niggers should have a right to vote.

And then I'm watching the Bill O'Reilly show and I see that Proctor and Gamble is an advertiser with the Bill O'Reilly show. I go, hey, if Fox isn't going to take Bill O'Reilly's show off the air, then does Proctor and Gamble, who is getting money with Bill O'Reilly, do you guys agree with that? Well, if that's the case, and I'm not going to buy your shit, because if I'm a nigger when he's saying it on the show, then I'm a nigger when your product is. on the shelf. Boom. Now, an argument that has been made over the past X amount of years that is when you do that, that you are keeping ideas out of the marketplace. I actually disagree. What I think is that the market of ideas, that free speech goes both ways. There is free speech involved in you saying what you wanted to say, and then there is free speech involved with people exercising consequence of that. I have no problem with that. The free speech that we're talking about now,

is President Trump and his FCC deciding who gets to be on television and who doesn't. Direct government intervention into American speech. Yeah, right. So that's different than the market people saying, hey, I don't like this. So I'm not going to buy that product. Hey, I don't like this. So I'm not going to support that show. I will say this, though.

I do think that we did get too precious with it. we got too precious with it and in getting too precious with it I'm not saying that the response from the right is just desserts. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying we got too precious with it and it hurt us.

Forget about them. It hurt us. What do you mean we got too precious with like in what way? We got too precious with what we did not want to hear and what we did not want to platform or talk about or whatever. We got too precious with it. And the way that I know that is because our ecosystems of speech stayed stagnant and theirs grew.

Their ideas became viral. Their movements got bigger because it sounded like to a lot of people that there was only one side talking. That there was only one side that there was only one side talking. There was only one side that had the bravery to go to. that for what it was that they believed. There was only one side that was willing to fight. It makes you look docile. It makes you look subservient.

It makes you look pussy. It does. It makes everybody else who stand on the sideline going, well, there's one group that proudly goes wherever they want to and talks about what it is that they believe. They believe. And there's another group that only wants to talk about each other or talk to each other

when they're in complete agreement. It makes you look like the cucks. Who, what are like, I guess I'm trying to think, like, what are examples of where you don't want to say the left, but the other side was not allowing, or like blocking the other side?

What do you mean? Maybe I'm, maybe I was misunderstanding how you were saying it. I thought you were saying that, I'm just going to say the left and the right, that the left, one side of it wasn't allowing the conversation on the right.

Like they were blocking it. Is that what you were saying? What I'm saying is like for when you have somebody on your podcast, when you have somebody on whatever it is, and by the way, this is not leftists. Leftists will go anywhere and talk to anyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is not leftist. Totally different. The center of the Democratic Party, the centrist Democrat voice, they became too scared to go and engage in the fight. They became, they were the ones to me, I'm just being for real, that tried to over moderate American speech. And I think it backfired.

What I'm saying is if you don't want to have, we keep talking about Candace Jones like she is. Because that's probably the only person that I would be like really, that's why I bring that up. But we keep talking about it like she's dying to come on this show. She's not dying to come on the show. No, but a lot of people say to me, you should have Candace on. That's why I'm saying this.

Right. But it doesn't matter what guests that we've had on. If it's been sales wife, what is her name? Anna Marie. Anna Marie. Whomever it's been, it's been, why do we need to hear from this person? Why do we need to talk to this person? Two things.

Number one, in those situations, we have to be better because we have to demonstrate to the audience why we need to have those conversations. But the answer is the real answer about why we need to be hearing from this person or why we need to be talking to this person. We need to better them. We need to get the best of them. We need to, in a marketplace of open ideas, challenge them. We need to challenge the logic. We need to challenge the talking points.

We need to challenge in a direct and real way the ideas that are coming from them. and we need to put them on front street. Yeah, I agree with you completely in that. And I also think we've talked about it. Sometimes when we're talking about our podcast, we're talking on it. It feels like we're preaching to the choir. We're talking to people who pretty much agree with the same things that we do.

Maybe not how we say it or present it, but they pretty much do. So it's important, I think, to step outside of the bubble. Because it's easy to, you know, like we have our podcast, we have our audience, we live in L.A. it's easy to think that the rest of the world thinks like this when clearly based on the election, that's not it because half the people voted for Donald Trump. I think it's important to recognize that there is this growing sentiment and ideology out there

that we need to address and challenge. And even though I saw something on social media this week where, or last week, where someone was saying there's no point in doing that, I disagree. There's no point in doing that because when you're trying to, for example, what's happening with Charlie Kirk. And I'm dealing with this in my DMs. I don't know if you are. God damn.

Like your people would be torturing you. Yeah. So my audience is 95% women on Instagram. And most of them, I would imagine, come from The Bachelor. But it's black women who may have liked me from The Bachelor, but then whole different ideals than I do. But, I mean, I'm eight years removed from that show. I don't understand why you're still around thinking that I'm somebody that I'm,

that I'm not. But the point is, is that I was trying to, they would have, I would have, having a nice conversation. They were asking me for examples. I would provide examples. I would say what it is, why I feel this way, like lay it all out between race, religion, all of it. And they wouldn't address anything that I said, and they would cherry pick clips that fit their logic. And what this guy was saying was, you shouldn't even be having these conversations with people because it's, they grew up with this mentality that you almost can't cut through. And I disagree with that. I believe that there's, maybe there's some people who are too far gone. And they do have maybe a cult mentality and they are so entrenched in religion and all of that that they can't see it in any other way.

Or maybe they're afraid to see it in another way because I know that there can be fears surrounding religion or kind of deterring from that or thinking in a different way. But there are people who will listen and will say, huh, that makes sense. Or you're actually right, I can't defend that. And I think that's why it's important. Last thing I'll say about it is part of it's for us.

It's a selfish thing for me. Oh. Selfish thing for me. Not because of the podcast, which like, subscribe, all of that. The podcast is actually doing like this.

Y'all only like us when something's fucking up. With something's controversial. When we just sit here kicking it and kicking it and doing all of this stuff, you only went, but when the world is on fire, our learning does like this. All right. So stop that. We're going to start.

No, just tune in for everything. Don't stop. Anyway. But it's for us. Example. There's a laziness to not putting your ideas in a forum where they can be questioned. where you can have tension. There's a laziness to it.

There's a laziness. There's a, okay, well, I believe this. I've always believed it. I don't want to have to defend it. I don't want to have to back it up. I don't want to have to use fact, nuance, reason.

I don't want to have to do that. I don't want to be challenged. I know that I'm right. I know that you're wrong. Therefore, I don't want to get in a place where you might be able to make me look like you're right. Is that lazy? It is.

I'll tell you why it's lazy. You got to know. You need to know. You need to know why the statistics that they throw out to show that black people are rampaging criminals need to be able to defend your position about the cultural nuance that goes along with that. You need to be able to defend your positions about. the financial solvency of the government. You need to be able to defend your positions about

being pro-choice. You need to be able to defend your positions about Israel and Palestine. You need to know the history of that conflict. You need to know what happened in 1888. You need to know the Balfour Declaration. You need to know the White Paper. You need to know the Irgun, the Haganah, the Leahy. You need to know 1967, you need to go to 1973, you need to know Lebanon, you need to know the Oslo Accords, you need to know the first Intifada, the second Intifada, you need to know all of that. If you're going to get out there and talk about that stuff, you need to know, you need to know about, you need to be able to look at someone and say, this is why this is wrong. This is the legacy of why it's wrong.

I'm not saying you need to be an expert. I'm saying you need to know. if you are talking about the wealth disparity or reparations to say if someone asks you why why are black people deserving of reparations you need to know why if you're going to say that you need to know and the way that you demonstrate the strength of your argument for the kind of society that you want is in conflict it is when that argument is challenged and not just with the other side, amongst people. We need to discuss a lot of shit besides who's pregnant, who's getting divorced, and all of that.

And I'm telling you right now that I am a part of the problem and have been historically. But we need to talk about some of this stuff. We need to have conversations that start cordially and end in intense discourse. And we need to have conversations that begin in intense discourse and end cordially. Sure, sure, sure. And if you're not doing that, you are acquiescing to an America that the people with the biggest megaphone get to make the rules. That's always been the case, I feel like, and with power, which is why they would have the microphone. But I agree with you.

I just want to say this last thing. I agree with you that it's laziness, but I think you have to also consider that it's fear. And I think that people are afraid to, because like there is a laziness, right, to research, to understand, to learn. We know that. And as things are so much more available at our fingertips and you can Google something and AI pops up and it'll tell you how to do everything and all of that, there's a laziness in thinking in the ways that you're talking about. But I also, think it's fear. I think that people grow up a certain way. They're taught certain things, whether it's school, whether it's religion, whether it's in their family, whether it's morals and

values. And as those things are challenged, there's a fear of disrupting everything that they already knew. There's a fear of, well, what if I learn that everything I've always knew is not true? I'm not saying this is right. I'm just saying I really think that that's the thing. What if everything I believed is not the case? And I think sometimes people would rather live in what feels easy to them, then to challenge what they've already been taught. And I think that that's fear. I agree. And once again, I want to say this to the people that are listening to this.

I know y'all are working hard. I know that you guys are dealing with all kinds of things that are sapping the energy from you. So when I say laziness, I want to put this in context. and let you guys know that you are emotionally exhausted. You are physically exhausted. Every single day is something else. The social media, the news barrage that you've got, that you're getting hit with.

Every day there's something else. And, you know, when I'm boxing, when I'm in the ring, boxing, getting it, right? Do you know why my second round is always better than my first? Why? Because I realize I'm in the fight. Yes. So when you in the gym, I don't give a fuck.

When you're in the gym and you're about to get, you know you're about to get six rounds, you know you're about to get 10 rounds. Somebody's, there's a little bit of, okay, any athlete knows this. When you get out on the football field, there's some nerves. When you get out on the basketball court,

there's some nerves. You're not in it yet. You're not living in the moment yet. But then after those nerves are over, now you're thinking, now you're in it. Now you're doing it. What's happening to people is they're not able to,

live in the moment because they're getting a new fear every single hour. And as soon as they adjust to that life, then there's something else. As soon as they adjust to that life, then there's something else. As soon as they adjust to that life, there's something else. What I'm saying is I don't want to call people lazy. I want to say for us, not even you, for me to not continuously push myself would be lazy because this is what I do. So I can't let my laziness become something that I then export to the world and tell people that I think it's okay for us not to be in some of these fights, not to have some of these discussions, not to be in the tension of ideas with people who it's impossible to de-platform. You can't de-platform the idea that trans people aren't people and don't deserve their own.

rights. You can't. You can't de-platform it. Doesn't matter what happens. They're comedians that are going to hit the stage. They're going to say it. The politicians are going to say it. The only thing you can do is have fiery dissent in front of anyone who will listen about why you don't want a 13-year-old kid to commit suicide over who they are. And you have to be able to look at the other side and say, okay, let me ask you this. Trans kids, everyone. Do you want them to die? Yes or no? Do you want them dead?

Do you want them dead? You want to make your jokes in Austin at the mothership? Like wherever it is, you want to make your jokes, you want to beat on people, you want to do all of this stuff. Do you want kids to run away from home, to live on the streets? Do you want them to commit suicide? If the answer is no, then how do you want to go about a world where they're safe? if the answer is no that you don't want black people,

trans people, black women, if the answer is no, you don't want them living in an unsafe community, then you tell me what would make them safe. I'll listen to you for a second. Because if not, then they get to make their jokes and be a part of it and do the whole thing.

And then by the time the conversation gets to us because we're not having it, we're on the back foot. And their ideas become the one thing that is really difficult to fight against. Their ideas become cool. That's what you're fighting against. You're fighting against that idea becoming cool.

You're the person that, think about how powerful, we have to move on, but think about how powerful it is just to be like, nah, man, that shit ain't cool. It's five people, and they're all doing their same shit.

They're bullying somebody. They're talking bad about someone. they're all doing the same thing. Think about situations you've been in before where one person, one person just goes, I don't fuck with that shit. Mm-hmm. Like, that shit, that happened with eating pussy back in the day.

Okay. And we're back. That happened with, it did. We was all in the player proof talking about it. And we're all in a playerproof and we're talking about it. And everybody's like, I don't know, I'm not doing that. And I was like, I'm not going to lie.

I do it all the time. Oh, so you. were the one. I was the brave. I was the brave. I was like, I'm not going to lie. I do it all the time. It was like, not only do I do it. I like it. And guess what?

As in, Gino, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, Tray. I was the trailblazer of Cunnelingas and my crew. And then we became the cuttellinous crew. We were the guys. And women in Baton Rouge were better off for it. Okay. Let's turn the corner. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business.

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New sweetgreen wraps hit different. Order now at order. dot sweetgreen.com. Okay, guys, on the last podcast, we talked a little bit about one of my favorite podcast, Breaking Points, and some of the coverage of Charlie Kirk's death that was coming from breaking points. We were pretty critical of some of the way that we thought Charlie Kirk's rhetoric is being lionized and whitewashed in the media, and we are critical of them.

Ryan Grimm from Breaking Points and keep telling you guys this DropSight News is joining us on higher learning today. We appreciate you joining us, Ryan. Thank you very much. Yeah, I appreciate you having me here. Did you hear the podcast at all from this past Thursday? A little bit, not much though. Okay. Is there anything that you took issue with in terms of our characterization of you guys and the way you looked at some of the narratives coming out with Trubbysday? I didn't, I didn't I didn't listen to enough of it. Okay. You want to, you want to, like, do the context,

and maybe for people who didn't listen on Thursday? Certainly. The context is this. I was alerted to what you guys were saying by people who have heard me talk about how much I love breaking points and how much I love DropSight. And they were saying, Van, you should listen. Wait a minute. They took a wrong turn here, that kind of thing.

Yeah. They said, you should listen from about 45 minutes on about the way they talked about Charlie Kirk's death. And I did listen. I think they know me, the audience, and they knew that I would be confused by some of what I heard. Now, before we get into exactly my interpretation of what was said, Donnie, can you just play a little bit of what Ryan and Emily had to say about reaction to Charlie Kirk's death? Yeah, and one of the quotes that I see going around all the time is where he said something like, if I see a black pilot,

I'm going to wonder if they're worse. And I understand why everyone on the left sees that as a completely racist thing to say. You see a black person and your mind goes inferior. The point that he was trying to make, I'm not defending him here, but the point he was trying to make was because of the existence of in their minds quotas,

I don't think there are quotas, but let's say there were quote. In his mind, he thinks there are quotas. where affirmative action requires an airline to hire X number of black candidates, whether or not they have X number of black qualified candidates. That's in his mind. So his mind then says, oh, this person was hired to fill this quota. So what he's saying is affirmative action actually fuels racism rather than redresses racism.

So I agree or disagree with that. Like that's the point he's making there. right which is a different point than the one that i think people were jumping on them for and when and with you know he he was you know coming after shill jackson lee and michelle obama saying they don't have the brain power and katanji brown jacks they don't have the brain power that they needed affirmative action like i think that's just objectively ridiculous like i think they obviously are extremely smart women um but what he was saying is that they suspect right that they said that they benefited from affirmative action.

Right. So he's like, well, if you're saying that, what you're acknowledging it. So, you know, it's getting down. I can stop it right there. Now, before we get, before we get into the conversation, I do want to play, Donnie, play the black lesbian clip from Charlie Kirk where just play that for Ryan. I want to get his response to that clip. Surgeon and flight are the top two where it's like they, no one really cares when it's

HR managers. No one cared when it was, you know, just kind of paper. shufflers or even engineers. But now when it's like, wait a wait, wait, hold on a second. You're going to remove my appendix and you're a black lesbian. Well, you bring these. Did you have to go? What he said was he wanted somebody more cookie cutter to remove his appendix.

Do you see why black Americans, black people have an issue with someone singling out somebody for their racial identity and their sexual identity and saying that they don't want that person to operate on them. Oh yeah. And also, like to say it like in such a crass manner as that is, he's also given away the game there. Now, there are other ways that people look at this. For instance, I have a sense that white men in particular, not necessarily now, but let's say 10 years ago. And also for the, the couple hundred years before that had a huge leg up in the United States, whether it's getting into medical school or anything else. If you're a white, if you're a white man, like, things were kind of laid out for you. And so if you see a white man, you would have the same, like, say 20

years ago, you see a white man. Like, oh, did this person get the job on their merit or because they're just a white man that knew the, that knew the right people? So like when you have a system that is genuinely not meritocratic and is giving people a boost, like for 200 years here in the United States for white men, then it can raise the point is it raises questions in people's minds. Like is this person then the best qualified for this job? Because you're now, you're excluding in that case, all women and all non-white people, you know, from this.

So are we really getting the most qualified people? So it's not just that it doesn't just come from that angle. But yeah, absolutely. Like I think the way that I think the way that he talks about race in general easily leaves people with the impression that he's bigoted. Like I don't know. And he's not trying like sometimes he tries to not do that other. But in like for instance in the clip that you just played, yeah. Like he has this like intellectual argument about why.

if he sees a black lesbian because he thinks that there's quotas that unfairly elevated her, he's not going to think that she's qualified. The way he's saying is just comes across as gross. Donnie, play the Laquisha clip. When I get on an airplane, you know, I want my got my pilot to be like, hi, this is Chad, maybe like a little bit of a southern accent. Chad Buckworth here. No, Chad.

This is my 31,000th hour. I'm kind of bored, honestly. I can do this in my sleep. Exactly. I want to like cookie cutter like, yeah, this is so, this is so easy to me. I don't want Laquisha James. They have that like pilot voice. And she's just like, hi, ladies and gentlemen, pray for me.

And the truth is, it's just, this is a creation that the left wanted. Yeah. That's highly directly and unambiguous. ridiculously racist. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it goes back to his critique of affirmative action. You right? You don't understand.

Like he's presenting it, like I said, in a crass and a racist way. And I actually think, like, I'm a supporter of actually affirmative action. Like, I think the decades and centuries of structural racism have not been overcome. And we ought to have affirmative action policies in place. But what he's saying is that for the. these for white guys like him, it makes him wonder if the people who are boosted

through that affirmative action have gotten there on a completely clean and level playing field. So you say later and the other point that he made is that

a lot of successful black people make that same critique. You know, whether it's could Tanji Brown Jackson or Michelle Obama and say like when people look at me, are they looking at me as somebody who rose because of my talent and merit or because of my affirmative action? It's like it's because it's embedded in the entire kind of structure of it. When you were talking, you said the intellectual thing argument that he was trying to make, but then later you acknowledge that what he said is racist. So to me, it's not an intellectual argument. It's a racist argument. And I think one of the things that we took issue with, that when you were having that conversation with Emily on the last podcast is that it seemed to be, like you say on the podcast that you acknowledge that a lot of his following does have a bias against black people.

So what does that say then as why those people listen to Charlie Kirk? His following has a bias towards black people, but they listen to Charlie Kirk because it feeds into that. Can't you say that? It's not as simple as saying, well, you know, Sheila Jackson Lee acknowledged. that she is a product of affirmative action. Charlie Kirk doesn't just say that and say, well, I wonder if people question the merits. He goes on to say, they don't have the brain processing power. And if they do have that position, they stole it from a white person, which you conclude from

that then, that they are inferior. There is absolutely no way that they have the brain power to have that type of job. They only got it because they stole it. That is a racist comment. Do you agree? Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's very clear what he's doing. He's like, yes, he's appealing.

He's appealing to that audience. Yeah, no doubt about that. Can I ask a more a question to you? Why the interest in laundering the reputation or rhetoric of Charlie Kirk? this is the most frustrating part of this. Like, we do have the brain processing power. And one of the things that we use our brain processing power for is to analyze and identify threats.

That language, the Laquisha language, that's a slur. Like, there's no, we could go down the rabbit hole of this. There's no way around it. And a larger question is, are. quote unquote friends on the left that we listen to, that we get our global world takes from that do the great work. Why are you interested in telling us that Charlie Kirk wasn't such a bad guy? Well, let me have a couple things on that. I'm not trying to say that anybody shouldn't think he's a bad guy. If somebody wants to think they're a bad guy, they should think that.

what I'm trying to do in the immediate days afterwards was get more accurate information about what he was saying out. So for instance, the nation and a bunch of other people were sharing a quote related to that airline situation that was inaccurate. The quote that they were sharing was black women don't have the brain processing power. Like that was the quote. He named specific black women, yeah. Right.

And then it's, but. Now, I understand. Like, as soon as I say that, it sounds like, that sounds like running cover for him. That sounds like whitewashing. Yeah. So it's like, okay, well, it's still pretty awful that he's saying this about these four, for particular women who are obviously extremely talented, smarter than he is. But as a news person, I want people to have this precise information so that they can make

their judgment from that. precise information and I and trying to as much as I can give the other sides of it so that people can think through that but then more to your point and to be like completely honest I think and this this isn't just me and maybe you tell me if this applied to to you guys at all to I think the expansion from uh you know this this this like insane violence that is like not directed and just as a, and it's just a byproduct of people's like alienation and anger has been, you know, for two decades now aimed at schools,

aimed at malls, churches, synagogues, you know, places where people congregate. Now it's expanded to pundit types. you know, people who are on YouTube. And I think there's just, like, just reflecting on it over the last week or so, I think there's just no way that as a person, I didn't absorb that and think about that. Scared.

And thinking like, maybe not scared because I, like, I don't mean it as a, in a pejority. No, no, no, like, because I've always, you know, the work I do has brought, up until this point, enormous amounts of threats,

but it's always been from, basically, you know, state actors. So I limit like, you know, where I travel and that sort of thing. And, you know, we're in this business. We get like cranks constantly reaching out. But it's easy to separate the cranks. Once in a while, they come to the house. But it's like, you know, tell me what if that's a crazy person.

Like, it's fine. They're just like weird. They're not violent. They're not doing anything. But to see it expand, even though I disagree with Charlie Kirk about like basically everything, like people don't, people are not rational in these situations. They're like, who, you know, who's a big, who's a big name? Like, how do I get attention?

And so I'm so like just to be completely transparent, I'm sure that colored my thinking. separately I have a much more kind of nonviolent and almost forgiving maybe too forgiving kind of attitude about politics and this in the sense that I genuinely do believe that if somebody is killed for their political beliefs you should condemn that violent act and in the immediate aftermath, stop there. I condemn this killing. And I know a lot of people disagree with that. A lot of people say, no, because then you're going to whitewash.

You're going to create space for lionization and like, and that's going to create knock-on effects down the road that are horrible. You may have seen I made the point on, on breaking points that went. when Qasem Soleimani was killed in 2020 by Trump, he was the head of the IRGC, the Iran's, you know, Revolutionary Guard Corps, had the blood on his hands of probably thousands of Americans over 20 years, particularly in the early part of the Iraq war. And every Democrat except Bernie Sanders came out and said, it was wrong to kill him in an airport. you can't kill civilian leaders even if they're terrible, but he's terrible, or they would actually begin with, he's terrible. Like this guy was terrible.

I stood against everything he stood for, but Trump should not have killed him. Bernie Sanders was the only one that came out and just said, Trump should not have killed this man. This is crossing a line. And then down the line, you can say, this is why I didn't like Qasem Soleimani. but if you couple your condemnation of a violent act with but he's a bad guy even if you say I'm not justifying the killing something about that implicitly opens the door for it so I think all of those things combined are the answer to your question there so a couple of things about that

when you talk about Qasam and you gave the example and we listened to it here when we were listening to that Breaking Points podcast, the difference to me is that he wasn't being deified. And so the thing with Charlie Kirk is, and I heard you say that on the podcast about people are recognizing that he was killed and they're condemning the way that it happened. But then they're talking about the other side and how they feel about Charlie Kirk. and you're saying in a way that justifies that. And I would just have to completely disagree with that because what we're seeing, it would be different if the response isn't what's happening.

It's not just lionizing him. They are talking, they are comparing him to political, like to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They've already made a day about him. The funeral. Which he wouldn't even like because he was constantly attacking. Correct. But this is what is happening.

And they're talking about having statues of him. And so when we as black people see that obviously we condemned on this podcast multiple times, we'll never agree with what happened. It was chilling to see what we saw. But we also can't stand by, stand back, and be silent when as we played in just, that's just the tip of the iceberg clips that directly attack who we are as people, as human beings in our existence in this world. So my question would be to you, so what are we supposed to do? So what are we supposed to do? Are you asking us? Because that's what it feels like to sit back and just allow people to pretend that he wasn't a certain way to an offensive to and racist and homophobic and so many things. I know you guys took issue with those words. Maybe Emily said it more than you on the podcast. Are we supposed to sit back and not say anything? And if you do feel that way, how long are we supposed to wait? What is the time period where you can say, okay, now it's a. okay to discuss who Charlie Kirk was. I think my philosophy on this extends only to me.

I wouldn't tell anybody else what to do. And I've also wondered that myself. And maybe it's like 72 hours as you're like, because I was, about that, I started being more critical. because it's easier for me too though because A I'm not black and so I'm not the one that's like getting that brunt and B I've been on the record criticizing him for since he became a remotely prominent figure. So it's not as if anybody like wonders like where I stand. Everybody knows where I am. so I don't have to kind of come out and I have less of a need to come out and repeat it.

But yeah, like, no, I totally agree with you because there is at the same time, you know, a war over, you know, his legacy. And you're seeing, you know, Trump's try to rewrite it in the sense of, you know, Charlie Kirk, you know, loved his opponents and wanted the best for them, wanted to convert them. I hate my opponents. I want to destroy them. And you see people who were trying to do that, trying to then say, like, actually, this is how Charlie would feel now. Like, everyone, like, it's almost like some Lenin-like figure.

Everybody trying to say, like, this is what Lenin would be doing if he were still around. I don't know. I mean, what do you think about, so you, what do you think about my contention that in a world where political violence is starting to really ramp up like it was in the 60s and 70s, that the lumping together of the condemnation of the violence with, yeah, but he was a bad guy. And a lot of people take it further.

Like, I don't support the violence, but I don't mourn him. I don't support the violence, but I'm not sorry he's gone, things like that, where it's like, well that's pretty close to like supporting violence and being okay with it so this is what i would say two things one to go back to the katanji brown jackson quote if we're going to get the quote completely right let's get the quote completely right i agree with you he said when speaking about kataj brown jackson shila jackson lee michelle obama he says he didn't say you don't have the brain processing power he says we know like we know you don't have the brain processing power. It's like we know. We're certain that you, Supreme Court justice, you,

First Lady of the United States, I really graduate. You, we know you don't have the brain processing power. That to me hints to a deep down, deep-seated belief in something. And a call in response to an audience that is saying, hey, not just Charlie I, Charlie Kurt doesn't know. We as an entity know you don't have the brain processing power. I hear that. I know what he means. And by the way, he knows what he means. Like, I hear it.

We could play you all kinds. We could see him talking about, we could stupid Muslims. We could continue. We could go down the rabbit hole. But back to the point that you were making. Rachel's point about lionizing him is the point. The point is the condemning of the violence is one thing. The whitewashing of Charlie Kirk, the martyring of him and making him

into something pure as the driven snow, something completely different. Cannot allow it. Won't allow it to happen. That's not going to happen. That's why we have microphones. Won't let that happen. As far as the fear of political violence,

it's interesting that your fear or Jinks fear or anybody else's fear plays such a prominent role into this. Let's say that you are stopped. pulled over or you're stopped in the middle of the night and there's somebody walking up to your car the person gets closer to the window of your car and you see that it's a police officer. For you, that's relief.

For me, my fear intensifies. Yeah. So for me, fear is a byproduct of my existence. And if not fear, being hyper aware of what's going to be. on around me, right? I'm not one of these scared to death Negroes, but I'm one of these people that understand.

So if the fact that anybody might be scared of political violence or scared of being subjected to violence or maybe being on the other end of it, if that's going to be used as sort of a catch-all not to tell the truth, that's going to fall on deaf ears with black people. It's not, right? because we had to watch various people make fun of Trayvon Martin.

We had to watch various people belittle George Floyd, Sandra Bland. I could go on and on and on and on. And what we want from people, particularly people on the left, who we intellectually caucus with, we have some sort of solidarity with, is we want them to be unafraid to tell the truth. Because a lot of times when white America is unafraid or, excuse me, is afraid to tell the truth about the condition of black people, then their fear ends up in our death. So I simply, as someone here, cannot condemn the violence is one thing. I cannot in any way.

in any way act like the ideas that were coming from Charlie Kirk and out of Turning Point are things that are good for America. And I'll be honest, anyone who can't agree with that with me is not in solidarity with me. Yeah.

They're not. Well, yeah, I mean, I agree with that. And I think it's fine to agree with that immediately after shooting like that overall, like this like large disagreement on whether that's, you know, good for the country or not. A couple points on that, actually. I grew up poor white kid in rural America.

Whereabouts? I don't know how much, you know, what's that? Whereabouts? Eastern Shore of Maryland. Okay. And over there, when poor white kids saw the cops, they got scared. Like, there was actually a coalition that could have been put together and still could be put together. among poor whites and Black Lives Matter and cops.

Because it's not as bad, but poor white people are treated terribly by the cops. And I remember sometime in my maybe early 30s, like I stopped being afraid when I saw the cops around. And it kind of hit me in that moment. I'm now on the other side. Like there's, in some ways, there's two different sides in this world. Like, there's the ones who see the cops and get scared. And there's the ones who see the cops and get and feel comforted. And then there's people in the middle who just don't even notice them.

But they're much closer to the feel comforted side. And so I noticed when I went from one side to the other. And you can only do that if you're white. you know because you can you can grow up poor black become a rich black person you're still not on that other side so try they try they try yeah yeah um on the point about telling the truth I don't I don't think that I wasn't in in I have it and the people on the left will they all know this if they follow me closely I will fight them a

out when I think that they are going too far. And I genuinely think a lot of people on the left, I think algorithms make it more more in our face than it genuinely is. But setting that aside, there are far too many people on the left that are genuinely supportive of political violence. Give me an example. Just, I mean, just on social media. Like if I go out, the reason why I say, The reason why I say give me an example is because when we are going to talk about this, right, then what I can't do is 65 to 70% of the Twitter handles on there are bots. So you're going to tell me that people on the left, I'm not talking about a nameless, faceless account of somebody that's celebrating something. I need people that celebrated violence in the way that Donald Trump said that maybe the 2A people could take care of Hillary Clinton.

and people that celebrated violence in the way that Charlie Kirk himself suggested that someone should bail out Paul Pelosi's attacker. I need it from the people like Donald Trump Jr. who posted a picture of underwear and a hammer joking about, I need that. And I need that from people that are, I'm talking about, give me, when you say people on the left, give me. Give me direct examples of people that represent left thinking that have huge that are the structure and the undergird of this thing. Not people on Twitter doing the Twitter thing. Well, no, I can't give you that. That's not that's not out there, Ryan. That's why you can't.

You can't give me that because it's not out there. Maybe they're all bots. but, you know, if I go out and make some of those points, just look, you know, just look at my inbox, look at my mentions, look at my DMs, like they just light up. So, and that's, that's what we have to go by. But yeah, not just that Trump at his political rallies, you know, saying, you know, beat that guy up. You know, and Trump himself offering to bail out, somebody who was beating up a black protester at a rally. Or pardoning the non, pardoning the January 6th riders. All of them, every single one. Yeah. So you understand what I'm trying to say? There's this both sidesism of this that's taking place that just doesn't exist in the realm of reality. When you really...

Well, statistically, there are graphs. There are percentages that show that when violence, political violence is committed, it is from way more than one side than the other. So that is actual proof. You can point to political violence as happening, not just on social media. I'm not saying that people won't act on that. I'm not at all trying to say that. I'm just saying you can actually point to it.

So when you're both sides in it, the sides really aren't balanced. Well, it's not, I don't think of it as a both sides. Like, I hit them all the time for that. I don't, like, but in this case, I'm not, it's not about both sides. It's like, it's wrong either way. And maybe you're right, that these are all. bots and there's not a not a tendency out there out on the left. That's not my sense. Sorry. I don't mean an interrupt you. When y'all were talking, y'all talked about, and it's not

just you. I see this as people are talking about, not Charlie Kirk just as a person, but in the way he handled himself with debates. He was this great debater. He wasn't, he was, it was just free speech. He wasn't doing anything violent. which is an argument. I could speech can be violent and it incites people to act on that just like speech can be racist or implied racism

and people act on that as well. But it's this whole thing he was just going to colleges and he was debating. And I'm really curious because again, we can go down the rabbit hole of pulling up videos

to how sometimes these debates weren't just nice conversations. They were hostile and antagonizing and demeanor. in some ways. But do you really think that the way that Charlie Kirk debated, and I ask this because it is being highlighted as a great thing, it is being encouraged, and there might be someone who decides to take on, the baton has passed to them, and they go on and do the same thing.

Do you think those type of debates were actually helpful? They were, and this conversation of that he was doing politics in the right way. Well, I think they were helpful to the Republican Party. Help for the country. I doubt it. When it comes to this like, Ezra Klein's, like doing politics the right way, my bar for that is so low. My bar is, is it violent? And that's because we're talking in the wake of an assassination.

And it's not violent. Now, people say, well, it's in bad faith. Yeah, I, yeah, sure. I think that's true. I think there are also two different, at least two different Charlie Kirk's, you know, he started this when he was like 18 or 19, started going to college campuses. And wasn't religion, wasn't talking religion. He was mostly then, I think, talking like tea party stuff, like small government. Yeah.

Right. And then, you know, that's what, that's where the wins of the, you know, Republican movement were at the time. And then he's like, he was Trump's skeptical and Trump wins. And he kind of follows that. And then he had kids a couple years ago. And I feel like he became kind of less obnoxious after having kids. If you look at some of his debates, now it's low bar compared to where he started out as a 19-year-old hothead. So is the country better off for like that kind of thing?

I doubt it. And I think it probably did swing camp. to the right. But should the left be doing that? Yeah. And I wouldn't, like, let's say, Medi Hassan went out to college campuses and put out a table.

It said, you know, debate me on, you know, prove me wrong. I'd be all for that. Like, and it would be unfair. Like, he would make absolute mincemeat of anybody he debated. I've told him, my old colleague, I've told him if, if we had to debate and I had to argue that the world was round

and he had to argue that the world was flat, like he would win, hands down. So he would obviously like mop the floor with a bunch of college kids. But is it wrong for him to do it just because he's outmatched? I don't think so. I think it's fine. It's not how I choose to spend my time. But I don't, but I think it's like I don't, I don't see. I don't, I don't share, I guess, a lot of the criticism. I think, yeah, it's not really, it's not really getting you anywhere. And what he's getting is, you know, viral clips. And at each campus, he's also then organizing.

Like, it's very smart strategically. Every, every campus event ends up with like a new TPSA chair. They form a little club and they grow from there. So he was certainly out organizing Democrats too. Also insanely well funded by the billionaire class. I think when we think about doing politics in the right way, there might be a little bit of a crossing of the streams intellectually there because politics being the wrestling of ideas where the most compelling lie wins is something that I think a lot of people have accepted. When we're talking about doing politics the right way, at least for me,

we're talking about not gaslighting, demeaning, and straight up lying to people. We're talking about having good faith arguments about differences of political opinion. I don't think that terms of- We wouldn't have billionaires either. What? And it wouldn't be billionaires funding it too. Right. And I think terms like, you know, the loquisha stuff, calling people, stupid Muslims. I've seen Ben Shapiro talk about sensitivity in the wake of Charlie Kirk's death.

Ben Shapiro once, Ben Shapiro once tweeted on Trayvon Martin's birthday. Like, Ryan, really. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like Ben Shapiro tweeted on Trayvon Martin's birthday. day. What wouldn't have happened to Trayvon Martin? Trayvon Martin would still be alive today if he, it's, it's, what, what, he.

Yeah, Michael Brown has shown note respect. Yeah, real calm. What I'm saying is this, there's a truth here. The truth is that what happened to Charlie Kurt is something that we cannot condone in American political discussion. That's the truth. Another truth in the wake of everything else is that Charlie Kirk was an asshole. And there is not going to be any amount of whitewashing,

lionizing, talking about it. If we do that, then what we do is seed so much intellectual power for someone else to talk and comport themselves in that exact same way and be completely let off the hook for it, we say it's okay to call her Laquisha and say she doesn't have brain processing power. We say that it's okay to say stupid Muslims deserve to get pummeled in Gaza.

And it's not. And hold on. It's okay for you to say it. You have the right to say it. It's not okay to celebrate that. let me be a hundred complete uh crystal clear it's okay for you to say that it's okay for you to have that okay means you can say it but a statue in the rotunda face up on the screen at the at the game charlie kirk day none of that is okay that's not okay and and if we in any way like seed any type

power to that, then it's an intellectual and cultural slavery that no one that I've ever respected or ever wished to be like would have gone along with not Hampton, not King, not X, not none of the people that were committed to telling the truth about their situation in America would have been like, okay, like, because something terrible happened, that means all of these things were good. and it's chilling, chilling. It's just to be quite honest with you, having had a part of my intellectual basis be your reporting on the Israel-Palestine issue and watching breaking points tell the truth about so much horror happening over there, it's, I was gobsmacked to hear the podcast. just like is there a fundamental disagreement that or misunderstanding that exists culturally

between black people and white people that simply cannot no matter how the politics align ever be reconciled because it I mean that's it I'll listen to that and everybody was like van you need to hear this and I'm like okay cool but like like what would you say, do you, do you, do you at any way before I start rambling in any way understand where I'm coming from? Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, yeah, 100%.

My connection is going in and out a little bit. Sure. But, but yes, yes, absolutely. And also, like, if that were a more planned out segment, I think I would have, because that, that was. several days after, I think it was in the, a period where I think it's fine to say, and look, here's, here's, here's, here's him talking about saying the Civil Rights Act was a mistake. Like, and let's let's let's unpack that. But it was, it wasn't a planned out segment. I just had thought of like a couple things that were circulating that were out of context. Because at in the moment, my concern was genuinely with people who I felt were like going way overboard into the we don't we're not going to grieve we're not going to mourn and I don't say those aren't the right words

because I don't nobody has to grieve or mourn but lament maybe the word is lament like I felt like people were coming way too close to actually justifying it so that's where the impulse was that's where the impulse to say hold on to pump the brakes here a little bit now now we've gone way in the other direction and so that's not where I am at this moment but no I I I completely understand what you're saying I also like really genuinely cherish

the lack of political violence that we have in the United States compared to other countries where people are getting assassinated, like, regularly. Because, you know, as you know, I cover South America, Central America, other places around the world. And you're routinely seeing journalists, lawmakers, broadcasters, human rights activists, getting picked up and tortured and disappeared in Pakistan, India. And we're a pretty violent country in general. But we don't have that added layer, which is, you know, I think it's very corrosive to just the public fabric. And so maybe I overcorrected, but I wanted to draw a pretty hard line on that point. It's interesting talking about, you know,

you know, political violence, and I do not follow it in other countries like you do. So I can't speak to that at all. But seeing what happened in such a loud and public and gruesome way, you would think, and I've talked about this on the podcast, that if you had so much love for Charlie Kirk, not you, general, that you would be pushing for the administration to put some type of policy in place obviously should have been done years before in regards to gun and political violence condemning it. I'm curious to, and forgive me if you've talked about this on breaking points, but maybe our audience hasn't heard it, but you would think that they would be using the death of

Charlie Kirk as a catalyst to further that type of agenda. Do you feel like that Trump and his administration are using Charlie Kirk's death as a catalyst to further their agenda in other ways, as in basically weaponizing religion to get the other things that they want. Oh, they are. I don't know how much, I didn't watch the entire funeral. Yeah. Funeral last night.

I saw clips. And that was just kind of an exclamation point on what we had seen the week before, which is absolutely using his assassination to ramp up the consolidation of power and authoritarianism to like unprecedented new heights. I'm president for the United States. And it's happening. I think just like the first the first couple of months,

everybody was expecting the worst, and then we're still surprised by what they got. Like, I think that's going to happen again. Like, we can expect the worst, and we're still going to be shocked. Like, I think, I heard, but there's some confusion around whether,

like, something with Patrice Collors, may have been some warrant executed, something going on. Need to do some more reporting on that, but certainly would not surprise me if they make a target out of her as a first step in going from kind of lawfare where you're using the levers of governmental power just to make people's lives miserable, to take people's nonprofit status to like deport people and detain them if they're immigrants

lock them up but then also to move towards prosecutions like arresting people their political enemies as they're trying to do with tish james in new york yeah they this is these are like as as dark and as serious times as we've had for i think a very very long time and i think that this they're going to use this to throw just enormous amounts of gasoline on the fire. Does that make you fear political violence even more in this country? I mean, the number of things to fear are just getting bigger and bigger. Yeah. And so, because there's different kinds of political violence, there's the stochastic, like, you know, deranged person who feeds off.

of the toxicity coming from either side and feels like they are, you know, carrying out the mission. They're really just genuinely deranged people. Then there's coherent people who are like single issue, like killing abortion doctors or something like that. And then there's state sanctioned political violence. You know, ICE, Ikeel to manage Chicago a couple days ago. the reporting on the conditions that people are living in in ICE detention are absolutely horrifying.

I was actually down outside of the alligator Alcatraz, which is its actual name. Like when I was writing the piece about it, I went to look up like, all right, what are they, what's the actual legal name of this facility? And it's like, oh, literally the legal name of the facility is Alligator Alcatraz. absolute death trap. And so there's that there's that state sanctioned violence on top of it. And all of them kind of

blur together and they're all worth worrying about. Ryan, we'll appreciate you joining this. Before we get you out of here, I will say this. On political violence and the,

I guess we wouldn't call it a new phenomenon. We'll call it sort of the re-emerging, the re-emerging, the return of this outward American political violence that ended up with RFK and even up to Ronald Reagan being shot and all that stuff. A long history of political violence in America

has always been a part of who we are going back. The country was founded in political violence. Okay. I'd say this. I urge anyone to consider the reality of being black in America as being inherently politically violent. When I look at the people in the positions that they are in, the conditions that they are in, lives being taken by the police, lives being taken by intra-community crime, even,

there is an American political reality that undergirds that and it's intentional it is a result and a reflection of American political engineering so this violence that lurks around every corner now that threatens everyone with a mic that that sort of is this poltergeist that people are worried about it's how we live We live wondering, what's the next thing that's going to kill you just because you are? And it's not just us. I would say the violence against trans people, the violence against people that we share our communities with that are LGBTQ plus, the violence that's happening against some of the undocumented brothers and sisters that we see around this. All of this violence is sanctioned by a political reality, by a political belief, by a set of systems that, are well-funded, well-organized, oiled machines that continuously pump out propaganda generation after generation after generation to pick winners and losers in America.

So for me, I get that a lot of people are afraid of this particular overt and direct form of political violence. But man, I'm asking for courage because the reason why I'm asking for, for courage, courage for people to condemn this, but also courage to not ask us to fold into something that we can't become. Because if so, I can't do that lest I become the thing that is leaning into the lies and the architecture of the conditions of my people. I can't become a part of a mainstream voice that is so afraid of telling the truth that lies get put out there because those lies cause of our lies and they never stopped.

There was never any stopping of the police brutality of the incarceration of all of that. We didn't get a time out for a couple of generations and then it started up again. So, you know, I don't know. It's exactly the same thing when I look at what's happening in Palestine. I look at a generations long operation to make one group of people superior to another group of people. Therefore, the killing of them is inherently just. And anything that they do in reaction to that killing is wrong.

And that keeps going. It goes over and over and over again. So for us right now, there's never been a time where solidarity is more needed, where communication is more needed. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you coming on the podcast. Yeah, of course. But, you know, at the same time, one time I don't know if you know this, one time you called me out. And one time you called me out, you did.

You, Ryan Grimm, you called me out. You said. On what platform? He's on breaking points. He said, the guy on CNN with the cowboy hat. And I watch you because I wear the cowboy hat. That's me, Ryan, that you were talking about. What did you say?

I can't remember. But it was the guy with CNN on the cowboy hat. And I actually look in your DMs. I went, hey, man, I'm a big fan, but I'm the guy on CNN with the cowboy head if you want some smoke. No, but like, so I think you were talking about, there was some kind of situation where we were going around talking about whatever, whatever it is, whatever. We appreciate you coming, but, man, just truth is truth, no matter how inconvenient it is.

And I think that's why a lot of people heard that and were disappointed. it. But we're delighted to have had you. And we're glad that you were up for the conversation, seriously. And happy to come back anytime. All right. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. You guys follow Dropside News. Seriously, it remains an incredibly vital news source for me personally.

I literally read it every day. Subscribe to it. Continue to watch breaking points. And when we have disagreements, we will adjudicate those disagreements in person and on Mike. Thank you for that so much for joining us. Thank you, sir. late it. Bye.

What did you think about that, Rachel? Well, something that we said before we hopped on with Ryan was at the top of the podcast, having challenging conversations and where you disagree at the beginning, and then maybe you're cordial at the end. I felt like that was a good example of that. And I felt like Ryan took what we were saying on the chin. And maybe he didn't say this, but maybe he's received criticism from other people. Probably so.

And it was kind of like he had thought about the things that he said. and, you know, took, and kind of wanted to, not not retracted, but just like, I've thought about it more. I had an initial reaction. And thank you for acknowledging him that some of it was his own privilege, which is what we talked about. Yeah, certainly. Yeah. We got to talk about our OGs, man. We got to talk about our OGs, man.

We got to talk about our OGs. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Your cousin. Who? We're going to talk about your OG first. Okay.

So once my OG, once your OG. Wait, wait, no, no, I wouldn't say that Van Jones is my OG. I wouldn't say that. I know Van Jones. I know both of these guys. Listen, you know what? I'm not even doing it. I'm not doing a fucking preamble.

Fuck all that. Listen, guys, we want to make sure. I love the OG Corner. This is a new segment. OG Corner. We got, it's out of control. There's something that's very important in life and having good OGs and OGs that you can trust is very important. But we have to talk about some of the things that were said from a couple of our OGs and a couple of cultural

OGs, okay? Van Jones. Van Jones talked about a text that he got from Charlie Kirk. Donnie played audio. I've decided I'm going to do something, I'm going to share something, something personal that I wasn't sure I was going to share. But I think it's important. Charlie Kirk and I were not friends at all. In fact, the last week of his life, we were beefing hard, beefing online, beefing on air. But the day before he died, he did something that shocked me. He sent me a personal message, calling for personal dialogue, wanting me to come on his show. He said, we could be gentlemen together.

He said we could deal with our disagreements agreeably. And in the past week and a half, just watching people talk about civil wars and censorship and all this stuff coming out of his death, I just thought it was important to let people know. don't put that on Charlie Kirk because the last day of his life he was reaching out to have not more censorship, more conversation, more dialogue with somebody who honestly was

one of his adversaries, me. And I just want to share that with the world. And I hope that maybe it might help somebody on both sides deal with issues more like he did. Is this good OGN or bad OG? Come on now.

I'm about sick of Ann Jones. I don't know how else. I don't know how else to talk about this. I'm sorry. I'm so tired. It's two steps forward, three steps back. Hold on,

let's just do it. Okay, so let's do this. I can't. So let's do this in OG corner. I'm almost about to be outraged by that. Okay, let's do this in OG corner. Let's do this. Let's do this.

Because we got, we had these conversations, you know what I mean? let's talk about the idea the thing not asking you to take your foot off the gas because we love when Rachel pressing their foot on the gas I'm trying to not make it be personal I'm trying yeah can I just give you credit for what you were very measured

in the conversation with Ryan I could tell at the beginning I could look at your hands and I the deep breaths I'm emotional and I said I am too though and I said he's really trying didn't interrupt me let me get in there. It was like,

you say I never give you credit and I never compliment. These are compliments, Van. And I'm just saying, I thought it was really, I really want to compliment you because I could tell when you were triggered by something

and you still remain measured. So I am going to take a page out of your book. I'm not going to take back what I just said, but I'm going to emotionally take a step back because I am very triggered by the Van Jones response. Okay, what triggers you about it?

I'm not triggered as in like, it's that kind of black. Oh, shit. I'm sorry. That is problematic. I don't want to say to the cause, but to what it is that black people are trying to communicate. What black people are trying to get you to understand. We had a great conversation with Ryan, and I felt like we were two black people who were able to articulate to

Ryan, how we were offended by the things that he said and how as black people, the things that Charlie Kirk said, did, represented were very detrimental to who we are and to our community. When a Van Jones comes on and does that, it hinders what we're doing. Why do you feel like that? When I first saw that, okay, my first thought was, I heard it, I said, oh, here we go again. But then the immediate second thought was, what was the purpose and intention behind releasing that. Who did that benefit? And the only answer I can conclude is that benefit of Van Jones. Van Jones released that text, right? He said, I didn't know if I was going to release if I was cursed.

Yes, you did. You knew you were always going to release it because it benefited you. That in, that in no way helped out what black people were trying to say. And it doesn't mean that we were being hostile or inconsiderate to the death of Charlie Kirk, we are merely saying the things that he did were harmful and detrimental to us, the things he said, the way he incited certain groups and how they acted on that. It was hateful. It played into very problematic stereotypes towards black people. And then here you come, almost as if you're different, almost as if like, hey guys, Let me tell you, you know, we, yeah, me and Charlie Kirk had our beef, but despite all that, he DM'd me and he chose me to have a conversation with and said he wanted it to be, you know,

I'm paraphrasing, but in an amicable way. That is anti-what-we're trying to say. To me, that is anti-Lon's podcast. And the only, I think you released that because you wanted to make it seem. You're seeing the discourse that's happening between right and left and. black and white and religious and non-religious. And then here you slide in and you say, this is what he said to me. So I just want to as basically you're saying, as a black man who had differences with him, this is the Charlie Kirk who messaged me behind closed doors. And I just want to

show a different side. And I don't know who that's going to help, but I just want to put that out there. You know, that doesn't help black people. It helps you. It makes you look a certain way. I'm not going to say it makes you look like a savior, but it makes people, which they're doing, praising you for being the bigger person, even though you had disagreement with him. I don't like that. And I feel like that's a reoccurring theme with Van Jones of you see the discourse, but you want to come in and say, I'm different. You're not saying that, but what you're putting out there is implying that.

I'm not like them. I'm not like you. I'm different. You're both siding it. And sometimes you can't do that to get what we need pushed forward or for us to be hurt. And that's what he's doing. And that's why I'm triggered by it because I think that is problematic. I'm not saying he's a bad person.

It's just I'm sorry. I think that was a very selfish thing to do. And I can't see it any other way. So Black Panther, remember who you are? Remember was Black Panther fighting? He's like, remember who you are? Yes. Van Jones or anybody like that, anybody in that situation,

just remember who you are. Okay, this is what I mean. So Charlie Kirk texted you. He texted you to have a conversation with you on his platform. Maybe he wanted to enter this conversation in good faith to have a debate with you about race. Maybe he wanted to show everybody that he could whoop you on his platform, right? One. But I'll tell you one thing is that Charlie Kirk doing that,

prominent black men have to remember that they're prominent. and that their prominence in some way others them from what other black people might be going through or how they're approaching something. And when you become prominent as a black man, your connection to your community has to be intentional. It has to be something that you work at. It's like going to the gym

because your table is right here for you, sir. Oh, here, get on the airplane first, sir. oh here this that stuff will put distance between you and them to where you'll think what's good for you is good for them or what happens to you the respect that is being shown to you is respect that's being shown to black people respect and deference humility humanity whatever it is that that being shown to you means that the person that is talking to you is capable of showing that to a black man. That's not what's happening. You're not Jontavius. You're not Demetrius. You're not Chalandra.

You're not Laquisha. I was going to say it. You're not none of those people. You're Van Jones. And there is a prestige that comes along with your name that makes you valuable to speak to and to talk to in a way that less valuable members of your community aren't.

That's why they'll talk about those people like they're nothing. Right? They'll talk about them like they aren't anything. They'll demean them. They'll minimize them. They'll debase them. They'll do that because community is a whole. Culture is a whole.

It's a thing that people have made together out of pain and ingenuity, out of advancement. That's the thing that we're. we're talking about. We're not talking about somebody's ability to say, hey, I think you're okay. Let's have a conversation. Hey, I think it's all right to be in the same room. I'm talking about the way they talked about us and the way he talked about us. And if in fact, Van Jones in that situation was trying to say that Charlie Kirk doesn't want civil war, okay, him, him texting Van Jones to speak about race on his platform to have a conversation

with Van Jones about it, that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. It just doesn't in a real way. That doesn't mean anything. I watch the Patrick Bet Davis podcast sometimes. They have Roland Martin on there. Roland comported himself in the way that he always does, like a G.

All right? They have Roland on the podcast. The fact that Patrick Betts had Roland Martin on the podcast means that he wanted a good episode of the Patrick Bed David podcast. It means that he wanted to have a

back and forth with a worthy adversary. That's meaningful in terms of political dialogue. Yeah. It doesn't say anything about the makeup of the person. Correct. Especially when you compare that act to everything

else that we are litigating and talking about. So what it seemed like Van Jones was doing was falling in league with people who are attempting to, like we talked about before, launder Charlie Kirk's reputation and his rhetoric as something that's good for America. And we can talk about the horror of the assassination and the rise of political violence and how we're against it. We can be honest about that. We also have to be honest that it don't matter how many text messages he sent out. Yeah. Don't matter.

That don't matter. What matters is the ideas that he was putting forth about black people, about a lot of different people, were harmful to those people. Right. And we don't have to celebrate it. Right. It was performative. I'm sorry. It was performative.

You had a whole, you did it on social media, then you had a whole sit down with Anderson Cooper. it was a moment that turned into something about you. And if I am being fair to Van Jones, I will say that there was a way for you to bring up that message and still have the conversation. But that's not what you did. I don't even think he implied. I think he was outright saying,

hey, Charlie Kirk isn't necessarily what y'all are saying he is because this is how he messaged me behind closed doors. Well, I mean, he said that don't count Charlie Kirk, amongst the Civil War people. I don't know that anybody did. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, as soon as I say this,

it's going to be a Civil War clip coming out of something. I don't know that anybody did. But to do that made it seem like, to quote Ezra Klein, it seems like he's one of the people doing politics in the right way. I don't think minimizing black women. I give it to Van Jones.

He's consistent. All right. More OG. and Stephen A. Smith. For certain severe critics of him, the man is coming. He's not playing around. He's unapologetic about the retribution he's willing to exact against anybody. He deems harmful to his ego, his psyche, his presidency in his own, in his own way that he may choose to materialize it.

But what does that mean then? Hold on. Hold on you know, but he said know this and operate accordingly. Shout to Laura, by the way. Laura Coates. Yeah, she's great. I want to say something to you guys. Don't listen to that.

Don't listen to none of that. Do not listen to that. I want you to think of anybody ever that you've respected. Think about Tubman, King, Chisholm, Baldwin, X, Evers, Baker, Rustin, whoever it is, whoever it is, whoever it is. it is. Think about the people that you've respected and the way they reacted to the American political reality. They never acted accordingly. They acted how they had to. What they were able to do was analyze the moment that they were in and then meet that moment. Meet that moment.

analyze the danger, analyze the precarious situation that they're in, and then meet it, and put something on the line. Acting accordingly in the situation can only be interpreted as don't talk too loud. Massa is mad. Do not listen to that. I'm not going to get into making pejoratives about people, insulting people, I'm telling you right now that if you do, as prescribed by Stephen A. Smith in that statement, what you are giving way

to is a new and reinforced way of life. What you are saying is that it is okay. You're saying that everything that could happen to you, because one person or one group or one wing of this is mad or upset or ready to

rumble, you're saying you won't fight. You're saying that the better thing, than fighting it or talking about it is to acquiesce to it because if you lay real still, it'll be over soon. Do not listen to that. That right there is part of the plan. It's part of the plan.

I'm not telling you to take to the streets. I'm telling you to donate to somebody that's taken to the streets. I'm not telling you to run for office. I'm telling you to run for office. I'm telling you to vote. I'm not telling you you have to be the change in your cubicle where you are. I am telling you that you have to recognize that change is needed.

And you cannot do that if you turn your voice down at the time when it is needed most. Don't listen to him. Well, be a little bit more measured on this one. No, no, no, no, no. No, for real, for real, for real, for real. Laura Coates is so good in this back and forth. Because what she says after is, now, wait a minute, Stephen A. You've basically what she says is you've built an entire platform on being unapologetically yourself and being very outspoken.

Are you now telling people not to do that and to comply and move under the radar? And his response, he doesn't really answer the question because it's such a brilliant question because you're basically calling him out right to his face. And he's like, well, yeah, I'm basically the ladder of, you know, move accordingly because I'm now fair and balanced. Okay. Stephen A. You're about to.

This is what I, this is all I'm going to say. In March 2025, Stephen A. Smith signed a five-year contract that is worth, reportedly worth nine figures. You are not fair and balanced. when you making nine figures like that from a company. You're not. You're, you're, it's a different day. It's a different day.

And I'm sorry, that's the only way. I love Stephen A. Smith, but that's the only way that I can say that. It's, it's, you're, you cannot be fair and balanced when you are working for a company that's paying you nine, reportedly nine figures. Wait a minute. So you're saying if you're making that much money,

there's no way you can be fair and balanced. You in the pocket of the man? I mean, how else do you? I mean, yes. Oh, shit. Well, this is why I'll say that because that's why Laura Coates' question is so great. You are known for speaking your mind. And now all of a sudden, you're like, well, wait a second.

Let me be fair and balanced about this issue. And I'm not discouraging you from being fair balance. But the point is that it feels like you're holding back or you're telling people to move accordingly or as Laura Coates put it, move under the radar and sort of comply. And it feels like you're doing that because of the new contract. Wow. It just feels that way. I'm sorry.

I don't know. And please, I would love for him to come on this podcast probably on now. And tell me I'm wrong, but it's hard for me to separate the two. And I would say that about it. And I don't know if I would be above it. Okay? Let me just throw myself. I don't know if I would be above it.

What? You got to tell me they give you the $100 million. You're going to shut up? I don't know. Or I might, I might be a little softer, right? I might, who knows? I don't know what I would do in that situation. But what I will say is the timing of the new contract and the, the way you seem to

discuss certain topics, it feels like they go hand in hand. It just does. That's how it looks. See, Rachel, I got to tell you something here. Prosecutor, Rach, okay? Prosecutor, you're prosecuting. You're prosecuting. I okay so this is this is the deal this is the deal this is the deal this is the difference like I attack the idea

Rachel gets at her her OG you're getting at your OG I'm not getting well yeah I guess I'm trying to refrain because I do I do tend to lean to do that I'm trying not to make it a personal I'm just analyzing the situation you do you not do you disagree I can't say I said I'm saying what It looks like, because I'm contextualizing this with Laura Coates question, this is who you have presented yourself and built your platform. And now you're saying this. Okay. Where did it change?

And he didn't answer. He just said, well, it's just that I'm fair and balanced now. Well, this is what I would say. Honestly, I actually don't think that this idea strays too far, the idea of what he said, strays too far from who Stephen A. Smith has kind of always been. I think that when we're talking about Steve, we're really just now learning in the past four or five years about Stephen A's political meetings and how he thinks about things and all that stuff.

But if I was going back into the past and bringing up stuff, I'm not going to. I thought you're going to Reap Kaepernick No no no no no no I'm not about to Because every time I talk about that I feel like I lose credibility When I talk about that now

Because people know how I feel about it But I'm saying it's like There's not That's not a fight the power type guy That's a straight shooter is You can be a straight shooter about Reporting on Alan Iverson Or talking about Alan Iverson

Or talking to LeBron James Or telling the truth about that Or all of that stuff But if we're talking about consistent see on these types of issues, I actually feel like he is kind of being consistent to who I've seen him as on some of this stuff.

If I was going to be directly critical of Stephen A, the person, it would be about critiquing his personal politics, which is his personal business, right? Is it, right? You can critique people's personal politics, right? No, yeah, yeah. You can.

But I find that to be less useful than critiquing the idea itself. people have seen me go hard on Tim Scott and a lot of these other people that's because they are enacting legislation that is directly harmful to black people in terms of the way they vote on certain voting things

the way they Tim Scott positions himself on the Justice George Floyd Justice and Policing Act I always want to say violence and police say just in policing so I'm like why do you want black people to get shout up by the police to why is qualified immunity more important than the safety black people.

All that's enough right. This idea that Stephen A is putting forth is an idea, I'll say once again, that simply cannot be tolerated right now. You can't do that. I would rather have ideas or arguments about the proper way to resist it

than have an argument about resisting it at all. I would rather have conversations about what the right thing to say. What's too far? I would rather look at somebody and go, hey, you know what? You have a corporate job. So this is the best way for you to say this and still be consistent with who you are.

This is the best way for you to say this and still. But this in reaction to the Jimmy Kimmel thing, where you're basically saying that the powers that be are so upset that you have to make sure that you don't ruffle feathers, that's un-American. That is legitimate.

that's un-American. That's un-American. Him not ruffling feathers in the sports world. That's a very low-leverage thing to do. I feel like there are a couple of places. And we also got to kind of call this out as we see it as well, where there are a lot of people that we revere for being these irreverent, unfiltered people.

But what you are irreverent and unfiltered about is the cowboys. like what you are reverent and unfiltered about is rap. That's low leverage. Right. Right. I mean, that's not to take away from anybody's expertise because of what they're doing and how successful they are. That's cool. That's low leverage.

Mark Lamar Hill went to the UN and said something that changed your trajectory of his career. High leverage. Jamel Hill said something. a truth that she believed on her Twitter when she worked for a place and it changed the trajectory of her career. High leverage. High leverage. And you can say whatever the fuck you want about whatever. But that type of speech and that type of talk, that type of thing, that is something that we have to always respect and always encourage or we get more docile and easily controlled as the generation's going.

Look what happened to both of those examples that you gave. And that's why Stephen A. Smith is saying move accordingly. Well, what I'm telling you is I can't separate the two. Once again, I can talk about cap here. And everybody would be like, their van goes again, talking about cap. But this to me was one of the reasons why it was so important that he was able to come back to the NFL because it would have been a win for us saying that you can't just take away from us from having high leverage discourse and all kinds of stuff.

I also would like to say this, since we've already weighed into it, Colin Kaepernick has an initiative where he is paying for the autopsy of the young man in Mississippi that was killed, and he is paying for autopsies for all people that die in these situations, these mysterious situations, independent autopsies, because sometimes that stuff is important. So credit where credit is due, credit where credit is due

in that situation okay that's a thing and I don't care what y'all say that's a thing okay it's a thing of course it's a thing

don't listen to that shit that's two cases of bad OGN and I have more bad OGN for you who Hakeem Jeffries the worst OG in America

is he an OG he is by definition of OG you know Can't say something to the Democrats real quick? It's like, first of all, where the book at? We're going to do the book. You got the book? I got it.

So we're going to talk about this book on, look at Kamala on the back. Oh, look at this picture. I'm obsessed with that picture. That's a great picture. We're going to talk about this book on Thursday. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. How long is the book?

It doesn't look that long. 107 days by Kamala Harris. You really? Oh, shit. Page 270. page 270 Joe Biden asked me to come into the White House and talk to him

about the trajectory of my campaign and where things were going to go. I sat down and Joe Biden looked at me and said yo what the fuck you want? What you're doing? You're fucking with my shit. I looked back at Joe Biden and said I am trying to be the first black woman president

of all time. Joe Biden looked at me without pause and then said, I don't want to hear all that dumb ass shit. Just give me the book. That shit crazy to me. I'm not fucking with that. I'm president Joe Biden for life. Look at me. And then all of the sudden out of nowhere, Joe Biden hit a double back handsprane into a tuck,

which was weird for my entire team because we thought that he had trouble getting up the stairs to the meeting. All of a sudden, someone handed Joe Biden a Rubik's cube. He solved it in 0.5 seconds. We're like, what's going on? it's the whole thing and act. But by this point, Cooney had written the letter and gone way too far.

I had to stay on my ground. I looked at Joe Biden and said, what about the crime bill? Punk motherfucker? And then Joe Biden threw an apple at me. I dodged that bitch. I'm telling y'all, y'all got to read the book.

All of that is in the book. All of that is in the book. That's not in the book. But y'all... Yeah, they know. Doubleback can't spring back talk. What if he just would have done that, though?

What if Joe Biden would have just been like? I would have thought he was Possess. Joe Biden just, but as I say, back to it. Hakeem Jeffries. Hakeem Jeffries.

To the Democrats, I want you all to know something, the Democrats. They're back on the letters. It's like five Democrats we like, y'all. Okay. Shout out to Maxwell Frost.

Shout out to Roe Conner. Shout out to this. It's like all of the Democrats voted for the Charlie Kirk. All of the Senate Democrats voted for the Charlie Kirk Day of Remembrance. All of the Senate Dems did? It passed unanimously. What the fuck is wrong?

In the Senate. I at least saw the house. And you guys, we get this. This is the fucked up part about it. There are people out in podcast land that are, they're feeling a little,

Rachel, they're feeling a little uncomfortable because it's like, we're in this weird situation where if you're too direct and biting in your criticism of the Democratic Party as a structure then you give way. I saw it CNN one time

Scott Voldemort Jennings said to me he goes I said something about Barack Obama then he looked at me and he goes I was about to criticize Barack Obama but you did it for me and then

Oh yeah I remember that. Yeah and I'm sitting there going huh because that line was a dub for him. That was a W. I'm thinking, it's the best thing to do in that situation to not criticize Barack Obama. Is that the best thing to do?

Because criticism of Barack Obama is a win. For him. For him. I thought about it. And the answer is no. That's not. It's not the best thing to do. It is, however, not without danger.

and we have to be honest about that because Democrats don't offer particularly the centrist corporate Democrats that run the party. They don't offer a lifeline to the American working person. They just don't. That's just that they don't. They don't. But

they do if not for any other reason then who they have to be beholden to to be in power. They do offer the thwarting of the existential crisis of Trumpism. And that's just true.

That's just a fact. It's just true that the DOJ would still be investigating the water in Alabama if there was a, if Kamala Harris were president. It's just true that other initiatives aimed at environmental justice would still be going through if Kamala Harris was president. It's just true. It's just true.

But my question to everybody and to you and to everyone, to Donnie, supposed to do with them? Like, what are we supposed to do with fucking Chuck Schumer and Hakee Jeffers? What are we supposed to do with them? Well, I don't think it's wrong to call the, I mean, for example, like, I say they're back to writing letters again. It's like, we're coming up on this deadline, government shut down. I think he was on with Dana Bash, Chuck Schumer, and she's directly asking him, so are you going to vote against it? And he won't answer. He's like, well, I hope, what I would hope is that Trump will come to the negotiating table. Meanwhile, you got

Trump supposed to be eulogizing somebody saying, I hate my opponents and I don't want the best for him. Do you fucking think he's going to sit down and negotiate with you? Like, how do we not call that out? Like, why are you writing letters? Why are you doing? It doesn't look good anymore. Those days are over. Nobody's patting you on the back and giving you a hand clap because you wrote the letter and then Trump said he hates you.

Like it's, it's, it's, it's, we, at this point, and we talked about it before, so I'm not going to get into it again. You need to do something to not continue in the way that we're going. And I don't think that it is wrong for us on this podcast to call out Democratic leaders and to demand more from them. We don't sit here every podcast and condemn the Democrats, but I'm also not going to let it slide when you're doing something silly like that. Nobody's, it just doesn't look good. It just doesn't look good. And I just want to say. I didn't know, I didn't realize that about the, that every person in the Senate voted.

Not every, not every, not every Democrat in the House. Of course not. Because in the House, we got some actual. But Hakeem Jeffries did. Yeah. He voted for it. He voted for it. And that's something that you have to acknowledge.

A lot of them voted present. And I would have, concluding Ro Khanna. So he didn't vote, no. Like AOC said flat out, no. And more Democrats voted pro. wrote at present, which is a strategy, because it's a yes or no, but it's like a protest, but just fucking say no. Just say no.

This is what some of the resolution was asking for. It recognized Charlie Kirk as one of the most prominent voices in America, engaging and respectful. I'm just going to pause there. Civil discourse across college campuses, media platforms, and national forums, always seeking to elevate truth, fostering, understanding. and strengthen the Republic. That's a lie. That's just a lie.

And anybody who voted, if you didn't, I got the list right here, I'll send it to you. Roe-Kana voted present. I'm going to pull this up right now. I can't believe you, Ro. Democrats who voted against it.

Ro, that's not good. Several, right? Of course, like Jasmine Crockett, Jim Clyburn, Maxwell Frost, Al Green. There are a number of people who voted out.

right against it. Voted present? Scrolling down. Roe Connor. Now, like I said, some people will say that voting president is letting you know I'm here and I'm not saying anything. It's a form of protest, but why would you just not say no? And then there were a lot of Democrats who just didn't vote at all. Right.

So look, that resolution's a lie. You're not wrong. So what I'm saying is, when we talk about bad OGN, we have to have essentially all of these people up there are ROGs right i want to have Maxwell frost on the show immediately back on the show back on the show because he was already i want to have them back on the show immediately immediately i need Maxwell frost here right away okay yeah we should have them before the end of the month when the when uh the government shut down is that issue because the reality of that entire situation is that um we have to be able to

hold people accountable and have these talks and also understand that there is sometimes a leopards face eating portion of the left that doesn't understand the political stakes of stuff. I get that. But it's just not going to happen with the leadership as it's currently constituted. Guys, I don't know what else you want me to say. We got the whole book that's coming out. And it's not going to the book is basically. from what I've read or understood about the clips that have come out,

it is a dissertation in Democratic Party dysfunction. So we have to say, hey, we got people that we've put in place and put in power to fight this type of stuff. We have to be on one accord on how we're fighting it and what you guys are doing with the power that is granted to you. and even if there are people that, you know, made sense of uncomfortable, there are a lot of people all that say,

hey, man, you know, you weren't as on board with Joe Biden. You've criticized Joe Biden a lot and all of that stuff. I accept you guys as criticism of me. I accept it. I'm doing what I know to do, which is to say that doesn't work, that doesn't work, that doesn't work.

Let's talk about what does. I'm doing what I know to do. I understand the danger that comes with that. I get it. I understand it. But what I'm telling you, is, yo, this is the ninth inning. Boom.

This is it. Who do we have coming? We can choose who's coming up to bat. It's the ninth inning of the game. We can choose who's coming up to bat. All the bases are loaded is two outs. You mean to tell me Hakein Jeffrey's going up to bat? Well, we know he has one.

You! That's cold. That's a cold-ass line. We got to leave it. They did. know that. That's cold. That's cold.

That's who y'all. Okay. All right. All right. I saw something, man. And it affected me. We got Mallet B. Come on a podcast.

Give you guys a little comedy. He's got this new comedy. Lighten it up. Lighten it up. We need to. Before we get to Malik, man, there's a rapper out there named Infinite Coles. And this rapper is

the son. of Ghostface Killer Ghostface Killer, who is one of the most important rappers, one of the most talented rappers, one of the most influential figures in hip-hop history ever. If Nick Coles

is dropping an album called Sweet Face Killer on December 5th, ahead of his release, this artist who is queer, dropped a title track in a music video called Dad Nye and this track is seemingly talking about his relationship with his father. Carphertational scathing lines like how your body count up,

but your pockets are starving, how you're in a Mack truck, but you forget you a father. On Twitter, Infinite Coast, this has gone everywhere now. He says this is not a diss song, but he is seemingly talking about the fractured relationship that he has with his father. and seemingly saying that this relationship is because of his identity. Yeah. He hasn't spoken to his father in a while.

And that could be because of who he is. Yeah. By the way, an insanely talented artist. Oh, yeah. So on goes hard. Yeah. Yeah. Which, I mean, ghost face killers is his dad.

It makes sense. It's a rather than a family. Cause face killer is the man. Ah. So when I looked at this, I realized all of the context surrounding it. I realize who ghost face is.

I realized the identity that Infinite Coles has. But all I saw, even in the video, is a boy reaching out for his father. That's all I saw. And I knew that this would be a big conversation for people like in culture. I know people would

they would take it and they would say this is what it is this is what it is and this is what it is and there'll be interviews and there'll be thoughts and people will be ass

and all of that stuff. But I looked at this as two hostages. One, a hostage of his father's love and the absence of it and his father according to what Infinite Cole says.

Nobody's taught to ghost face about this no one knows, right? As far as that's concern. One man, a hostage of ideas that were given to him. This is where the situation breaks down because what you want is a father that puts the love of his son and who his son is ahead of everything. That's not what you want. That's how it's supposed to be. The natural order of things is that parents love and protect their children no matter what. That's what we

expect that's what's supposed to happen. But having lost my father and had to contend with his eternal absence, I have to contend with who he really was. Who he actually was. And I have to contend with the fact that a lot of who he was and what he actually was just didn't have anything

to do with me. I had to do with a lot of circumstances and a lot of things that were before me that were happening the same time as my life was happening, choices that he made, decisions that he made, social programming that was inside of his head. And I have to come to terms with the fact that the rest of my life and trying to find him is me speaking into the void, is me asking answerless questions about who he was, and why he did some of the things that he did and why he comported himself in life the way that he did. And I sit with that and I have to look at pictures

and think about old things that he said and put all of that stuff together. Anybody that's not in that position, I envy them. I looked at this song as a chance, as an opportunity. Y'all, I've been hitting you, I've been calling you, I'm not getting nothing back.

I've been waiting for you. you. I've been warned you. Look at your face. Look at my face. Look at my face. Look at the boy's face. That's his daddy face. Look at this. I've been getting at you. I'm not getting nothing back. I'm here. I'm talented. I'm beautiful. I'm vibrant. I'm all of that. Where you at? There's an answer. There's a chance. There's an answer. They could do it. You want to do it. I promise you, man. You want to do. do it, man. You want to do it. It don't matter anything else that's going around to any, I don't, whatever you want to do it. You want to be able to hug, put your arms around.

You want to do it. You want to work through whatever you have to work through. You want to, whatever decisions, whatever past, whatever trauma, whatever relationship, whatever you want it. even if you don't think you do you do you want it because if not you sit where I'm sitting and all is left is the wondering I'm not talking to Infinite Coles he doing his thing I'm not talking to go I'm talking to them together if you ask me

it's the father's responsibility to keep his son loved it's the parent's responsibility to keep their kid love and protected if you ask me that's the responsibility but what I also know is that people approach these responsibilities with who and what they are. And sometimes those things can't be figured out with just one person. It has to be two people together that figure them out. And it's never fair.

I just wish 2016, 2017, 2015, when my shit had first started, I wish I just been like, yo, what you think of me? What's your opinion? By that point where I was at, I was like, nigga, I don't really need you to validate me. You're calling me asking me for money. I don't need you. I won. I did it my way without you.

Not without you. But I did it my way in spite of your disapproval of me. I did it. My shit. I'm the man. I don't need you. I'm now. It's my family now.

I'm young. I'm strong. I'm successful. I did all of this. And I told you that my way was going to work. I told you that. I told you I didn't need to be you for this to work. Then he dies.

The same year you win an Academy Award, he dies. And it's like, didn't I want you to raise your hands and be like, I wanted you to say your way worked. It don't matter if it don't come from you. So any boy reaching out for his father, I see you is more than a story that's, on one of the clickbait pages or anything like that. That's pain being expressed through talent.

And God damn, I hope they figure it out. I watched that shit like four times. Then I DM'd him, then I deemmed Amber. You know what I'm saying? You DM Ghostface or Infinite? Nah, I did. I deem Infinite. And then I deemed Amber Corrine, who I hope I'm saying her name right,

who is a brilliant lady to help bring this whole thing. Just to literally just to say my piece just to be like, yo, but I don't even know how to, they got a chance still. Yeah.

Well, maybe they'll hear this and maybe they'll, maybe it'll soften it up. Maybe it'll open some doors. Because I don't know how it couldn't after what you just expressed. Still got a shot. That's what every,

some, look, I'll be real. If some people out here, just let me be clear that are living with the legacy of abuse and trauma and all of that. There's some people that feel safer in their lives without their parents, without the people that raised them. Look at what you did to me. I can't subject to myself to A. Yeah. I get it. But then there are other situations to where people can't get past themselves.

They can't put their family first. they're still selfish, no matter how old they are. They're still handcuffed to this ridiculousness that we use as a defense mechanism. It's still part of all of it, right? To this example or this idea of manhood, all of this. I'm not, I don't know, all I know is what's in these couple of bars. I don't know, whatever. I'm saying if that's all the case, you got a shot, you could win.

All right. Speaking of Baton Rouge, we got Malik B. Come in. We're going to give y'all a little something to laugh at. We're going to talk about whether or not comedians should be ugly or... If you have to look a certain way to be funny, to be taken seriously as a comedian. This new era of decent-looking comedians, right?

Yeah, we're going to talk about his new special. His new special. On Hulu. Y'all still go on Hulu. watch it. Okay, Hulu. Yeah, we get it to a lot of stuff. We talk about his acting career, how he got into comedy.

Malik B had to beat a nigga up to get his acting to career started. He's in the first creed. He had to beat a nigga up to be in creed. That's what I'm talking about. Mike made him. Mike, you made this man beat somebody up. We talked about all of that. It's coming on the other side of the break on hire.

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You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. then you'd want a cargo liner or road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud,

you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Maddoch, what's going on with you, brother? Man, I love this podcast. You do? Yeah.

Why do you love higher learning? Well, I like your viral clip of you had controversy on the last time about Charlie Clark and Kirk I'm sorry they're gonna take this shit off the air

You gotta say his name No you gotta get your ass off the fucking air He's like Lord Voldemort so I'm not gonna You know what I mean I don't you say his name correctly they're gonna tune in but you just confuse him Charlie Clerk you know I mean or Charles Clark

It doesn't matter They can't eat they never like ban us But nah I just I just saw, I was like, damn, Van be on their necks. And I love that. We're going to talk about Baton Rouge in a second. Okay. You have a comedy special coming out.

Tell me about that. It's out. It's out. It's out. It's out. It was produced by Kevin Hart. I filmed it last year in Vegas. And I was happy about it 30 minutes.

A little nervous when I got up there. But then when I saw it, I was like, oh, okay, yeah. Because, you know, when you kill in the audience, it's like, all right, that's great. But TV, you know, people on their front. phones, people, it's in the cover, they're going home. So I'm like, oh, is it going to translate? And I'm always worried about that. But, nah, I was laughing.

You didn't come across as nervous at all. I mean, maybe you used that nervous energy to, maybe it worked for you. Well, I can get that you were nervous at all. I'm nervous every time I get on stage. Really? So weird. We were just talking about the news. Because you were also box, right?

Yeah. So I was talking about that. Not also. What? You know where I saw him? Not, not, not, it's not a dingy you. No, no. No, guys, see, this is the type of shit.

See, I'm on your side now, man. Exactly. See what I'm saying? I was going to talk to about the boxing, but I just let, you also boxed too. No, no, no. Because I'm going to go back to something and I'll talk to about. She does. But people don't be seeing it, man.

People don't be seeing it. I love it, though. I love it. I like the fact. So the reason why I brought that is because I talked about the fact earlier that when you're sparring, when you're about to get rounds with somebody, you haven't got rounds before before, there's always a little bit, at least for me, of nervousness. that gets in it until you get settled into the fight.

Correct. And comedy, it might be the same thing. You go on stage. There's a little bit of nervousness. But then you fall back into your training or your preparation. And that becomes what gets you through the performance. It's not that much different than being in the ring. Correct.

I agree. Right. Now, I saw him. He's in Creed. Yeah. Which one? The first one. Oh.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people say, I always get asked like, hey, which one? The one, I think that was the only good one. Oh, shit. Hey, hey, hey, hey, let's The third one was so good. I thought the third one was the best one.

You're not biased because you were in it. Huh? You're not biased because you were in it. What do you mean about bias? Like, you were in the first one, so you think that that was, that's why it was better. Huh? Okay. Okay.

Okay. There hasn't been a bad creed. You said what? There hasn't been a bad creed. There hasn't been a bad creed. I liked Creed too. I like the order. I like the order.

What's the, to me, the order of Cree movies is Cree One. Okay. Let's say, let's let's let me, we can stop. right there. That's it. We can stop right there. Creed 1, 3. And then Creed 2. I say 312. You say 312. Mm-hmm.

So Creed 3 is the best Creed 2. I loved Creed 3. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Majors is Jonathan. He's from where I'm from. Oak Cliff, Texas.

Oh, okay. So it's bias in there. Oh, God. But I love the storyline. I love that they brought it back to how he grew up and how they were friends. It thought the movie was great. Yeah. So good. I mean, we could tell me.

I thought in the first one. I love like how he came in my gym. And I was, never mind. So in the first creed, Malick is, you know when he starts training at the Philadelphia gym? And at first he's getting it.

He's got the sparring partner and they don't like each other at first. But then y'all start getting along. That's Malik. And so then I was watching Creed and I'm like, man, a homie looks like he boxes. So I wonder if they actually got a professional fighter to come in and be him.

And so then I look you up and then what did I see? Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He told me the story. He told me the story. Baton Rouge, Louisiana. You're from Baton Rouge. You ain't creed? How do I not know?

I'd have been put them on TN. Exactly. Like, how did I not know? And then I reached out. And then I realized that's when I saw all the skits and all of that stuff. So talk about the boxing and stuff that your career before you got into acting and all of that. My career from boxing, I'll tell you, it's so weird, high transition.

I was in a boxing gym and in walks Michael B. Jordan with my childhood friend, from Louisiana, by the way. Yeah. Corey Collette. Corey. Yeah, big guy. Corey. So I used to train. Corey used to know I used to whoop ass.

So he told Mike, I go talk to him. So Mike, we're just chopping up like how you and I chopping up. And we're cool for like a good 45 minutes, like chopping it up. then he's like, hey, bro, if you, you want to roll in the movie, I said what you mean? And he said, bro, if you go in there and beat this guy up, he has a part, I'll just, like, switch y'all out, swap y'all out.

Because he didn't know how he had his hands. And I beat the piss out of it. Wait a second. So you're about to go in there and get some rounds. Automatically, yes. And so then Mike, shout out Michael B. George. And so then Mike plays the Hunger Games with it. Mike says, this guy's in the movie,

but if you fuck him up, now you're in the movie. Yes. So then you went in there and you... Fucked him up. Then I'm thinking it's like, all right, I just wanted to show him. Like, bro, I take his number down and he was like, pull up to the crib. Pull up to his crib and nice crib, by the way, Hollywood Hills. And I'm like, wow, you know how you being the crib?

Like, it's so dope. You're like, damn, I got to go back to my apartment. We could just stay here. But it was so nice. And he just showed me the role. He was like, this is the role I want you to play. He was like, I'm going to just have them. You got to audition.

It's a formality. And I'm like, all right, well, cool. I never acted before. So I do the audition. I don't hear anything. I'm up for like three months. I get a call in January. They said, hey, congratulations.

I'm going to fly you out to Philly. Wow. Yeah, like to be on the set for three months. I was like, wow, I'm an actor, right? I get there. I tell my family and friends like, hey, man, I'm an actor. Treat me like as such. So I'm training.

I'm getting ready. And Mike will be Jordan. This is a true story. Mike will be Jordan, Ryan Coogler. and Sebastian alone come to my trailer, right? And Ryan Coogan was like,

you don't have a lot of lines in this movie. You don't. But you have one line that's so important the movie won't make sense until you say this line. I was like,

oh shit, a lot of pressure. Okay, all right. My line was, you're not a dynasty anymore. You're the real creed. Meaning he's turning into, you're right?

So I was like, oh, he's like, can you handle that? I was like, yeah, I can't handle that. So, bro, for like three months, I was, practicing on one line, right? And then, like, my mom and friends will call me and I'm like,

bro, what you're doing? I'm like, I'm practicing. I was like, you only got one line. I was like, the movie won't make sense until I say this line. So you got to chill out, right? So I get on set and I say my line, right? Say my line. I cook.

They started clapping. I was like, wow. And then Sylvester Lowe was like, that was really good, kid. Like, you're going to be a Hollywood star. I was like, oh, for real me? Right? So then at the premiere, I bring my mom, right? I'm with the L.A.

Premier. all the stars out. And we're sitting in the back and I was like, mom, pay attention because the movie won't make sense to your son say this line. Do you know they cut my line out? Go. I was wondering.

I was like, go watch the movie again. Go watch the movie again. We're at the end of the walkout scene when they're playing Tupac Hell Mary. Right? And it's a very dope scene. We shot it.

We're walking. They're shooting it like behind us. And you can see me and he's going into the ring. And you can see me saying my line, but they muted me. And they just put, come with me. No. I'm like, what?

So you didn't get a side card from the movie? Man, my mom was in there. I was like, when you're a line? I'm like, girl, the credits are up. Stop playing. Stop playing. That's how it turns. So from there, I was at the after party and I was just like talking like, man, they cut my line out.

But I met Gerard McMurray who filmed the Netflix. He had a Netflix series with all black, the first all black college student called Bernie Sands. It was about hazing. Yeah, about hazing. Yes. Yes. And he said, hey, bro, I liked you in the movie Creed and Ryan told me about you. Come on audition for my movie. So now I audition for his movie and I'm around people my age. Like, yeah, I mean. And I'm like, damn, these guys are good. Right. So that made me want to step my game up from that set. But on the set, I will always crack jokes. I will always crack jokes and to the point they were like, bro, I think you should do stand-up. So you never thought about doing

stand-up until somebody said it to you. I swear to God, never thought about it. I'll watch comedy all the time, go to comedy shows. I watch my family. We'll have like dinner. Well, you know, it's foreign now, but we used to eat dinner as a family and have a TV and we'll watch Comic View. When I was little, I was like, oh, this is funny. And what I do is I watch Comic View, and the next day at school,

I tell people the jokes. And they're like, ah! So I always will just, like, try to make people laugh. So when he told me to do stand-up, I just ignored it. And I got home. And in L.A., and then my pops told me, he was like, bro, you got to do more than acting, right? Just boxing, acting. He was like, try stand-up. I was like, all right, cool.

So my friend who was on the movie set told me to take a acting, I mean, a stand-up comedy class. And it was David Arnold's, R.P. David Arnold. And I took his acting class, I mean, acting class, his stand-up class. I remember the first day I did a joke and it got a laugh. And then he said, you're too cool to be on stage. But he said, I want to see, like, you vulnerable. And he kept saying that, kept saying. And then we had a showcase, and I showed my vulnerability to everyone.

And I got a standing ovation on my first. Like, we did it for like 10 weeks. And then you got to have a showcase and you have everybody in the audience, like a real show. And that was my first real show. And I got a standing ovation. I've been doing comedy ever since. Wow. What did you do that was vulnerable?

What did you talk about? I talked about at that time I was going through a breakup. And I talked about how in my life, a lot of people were passing me up. But I had a funny joke about it. So that's what it was kind of like, oh, okay. Because in comedy, they love, they love me when you lose, you know what? You self-deprecation a little bit. And they want you to relate.

So that's what it is. So it just taught me early how to relate to the audience. And that's what boxing did. Boxing taught me, because it's you versus the audience. So you're in the ring by yourself. You can't really, like if a bomb is better than taking a punch to the face. So therefore, it gave me the courage to say like, okay, cool, it's me versus you. Let's try to see where we can.

relate. It's funny because like my boxing coach Phil he teaches a style and that style is defensive and the first thing that he tells you is he's like let him boo. And I mean like, what are you talking about? He's like, well, when you're in there, you're in front of somebody else but the audience is judging you. So he's like, you at certain times in your life van, you're going to have to let people boo. You're going to have to let people boo and make all of these judgments about you until you find your plan of attack and how you're going to be successful. So if you're in the ring and you find in your range, you moving, you off of it, the crowd is booing, let them boo.

Because when it's time for you to attack, you're going to have enough information to attack responsibly. And you take those little fucking messages and you use them until you sparring and somebody hit you real hard and you go, I gotta get them back. I gotta get them back. I gotta get them back. I ain't no bitch. You know. How did stand-up is notoriously a clickish community, right?

Yeah. They, stand-up comics really care about the art and craft of stand-up comedy. Your stand-up special was produced by Kevin Hart, who is probably the biggest stand-up star in the world. If not, top five. You guys know all the guys out there. Kevin Hart's gigantic. What did it feel like to be embraced by somebody like that in the industry where if you just started and you haven't been doing stand-up comedy since you 21, 22 and going through all the smaller clubs and paying dues, sometimes they don't want to see you in it. Correct.

What did it mean for Kevin Hart to say, I'm looking at him, I think he's worthy of it, I'm putting them on. Well, my first reaction, I was like, man, you really know me? because, you know, people will follow, well, they will see your stuff, they won't like, they won't follow, they won't comment, but they see you all the time. So, and sometimes you'll see someone on stage, when you're on stage, you don't know who's in the audience. They can hoodie it on, glasses, can watch you and be a night where you're like, man, it's a small crowd.

I'm not about to give them an A plus material, but you do it every time. Then therefore, people start noticing. I think that as far as like the years, I look at it like this. It's like, okay, a guy's been doing stand-up for it. 10 years. But he's on stage for one time every month versus a guy who's been doing it for four years and I'm on stage every day. Who surpass who? So that's how I look at. It's not a exactly. I look at it as reps instead of year. So I put a lot of reps in like every day. I was like, okay, cool. I'm a use. I took acting money checks and just invested all in stand up.

So I go to open mics over. I go to like six, seven open mics. Man, I go to shows. I always hang out at the clubs. I always study stand-up. Stand-up was all me. So if a person that's like been doing it for 10 plus years and has a part-time job versus a guy that's just living, breathing, stand-up for like four or five years, you kind of like surpassing the guy who's been doing it for 10 years. So with Kev came up to me, he was just, he said, I've been watching you for a minute. He told me his friend, he was like, his job is to introduce me to the new young phenops. And I was like, damn, okay, cool. And he was. He said from the skits from stand up.

He said, bro, I've just been, I've been watching you. But he didn't really say it like that. He said, first words that came out of his mouth was, who hurt you? I was like, what? I was like, bro, he was like, did she see it? Did she see it? I'm like, no, bro. And he was like, bro, and he was like, yo, you are hurt right now.

I was like, no, I'm just acting in it. And then we was joking around. And he was like, bro, I really like what you're doing. And he said, bro, I think you're very talented. I think like because the skits and stand-up are both funny because you don't get that. And it's like day and age, you'll have a person that's great in skits and then get on stage. You're like, man, I could have watched this video. So therefore, he said both is a talent where he wants to just make sure he can get me to the next level.

And I was like, wow. So he just, we feel the stand-up. And it was great. I'm glad I got picked. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you because were you? you doing stand-up first and then you started doing skits or, you know, just all that on social media? Or would you start on social media first and then did that translate? And then how do you, like is it hard to jump from doing that to doing a stand-up? Because we don't really see most people,

as you were saying, make that transition. I was doing stand-up before skits. I've been doing stand-up for, it's my ninth year, and I've been doing skits for two and a half. Oh. Yeah, two and a half years. And I wanted, I didn't even like skits. I'll be honest with you. I was a stand-up comedian, like, trying to be funny on stage. But I noticed the guys who created content, they will go viral and they will have people come to their comedy shows. I was like, oh, I need butts in the seat. So this is the only way I can do that.

So I'm going to go and try to do skits. What happened for me was I was an actor and a person that was funny on stage. So I can just, like, put a punchline in the scene and go to the next scene and make sure a punchline is here and there. So that's why people's like, oh, it's funny. as opposed to like you see comedians try to great at stand-up, try to get in the skit world, you're like, oh, hell no. And then you got concert craters are gritted what they do,

what they do, and they go to this one because it's easy money. And they're like, uh, but I like the people that put the work in. You got to put the work in. So who are the top skit guys to you of all time? All time? Uh, who, well, I'm different, though. I like people that think outside the box. Right.

Like, I love that. Like, of course you got to say Drusky. To me, Drewski is the funniest person in the world. Yeah, you got to say, yeah. You got to say, yeah. I love him. I'll be honest with you.

No. I love him. I think, I think Drusky has an otherworldly ability to inhabit a character. Like an otherworldly ability. I watched one where he was a little league baseball coach. and the little league baseball coach drusie skit if you play little league baseball in the south that's it's not kind of how they are it's exactly how they are and it's it's weird how he can

get into the character it's there should be as much drusky as we have there should be more drusky like he's fantastic at that like without a doubt so yeah he's up there who else besides yourself of course I'm not even I'm a fan of like like I said I didn't like it at first but then I started appreciating it. Um, RDC. I like those guys. Oh, those guys.

I love those. I love those. RDC, I love how just the, the, the brotherhood. Yeah, with his homies. Yeah. I appreciate stuff like that. Like, and he's super funny. And I just talked to Mark the other night.

I was like, okay, cool. And I told him this. I give you flowers to the, and he gave me my flowers. I was like, bro, y'all. killing it. And the third one who I've been watching is a, it's a low key guy, bro. Y'all don't know him yet, but he's hilarious. His name is Giovanni Apollo. He's a, he's a mesking guy and he is, or he has me dying. Okay, I've never seen him before. Bro, I'm going to put you on. He is so funny. It's like when you see those guys and they follow you and I just watch

his content, I'm like, bro, he don't have a lot of followers, but bro, he's hilarious. Are you familiar with Trey Rags? Oh yeah, I love Trey. He's a genius. No, he's a genius. It's dark. No, he's a genius. Dark, man.

Man. Would I like him? Dark like he got banned from TikTok a couple of times, Facebook couple times. He came back YouTube and ran it up and he's like. But he hasn't been banned from YouTube. When I say it's dark, it's not like. It's only a matter of time. There's one that he has where it's so crazy.

It's like, dudes dancing at a party and he tries to get up on a girl and then the girl turns around and realizes that it's him. Right? Because his homeboy is like, yo, go get up and go dance with her. And then he dances on her.

And then the whole party turns on him. The DJ. Because everybody's like, he's too ugly to dance with the girl. And it's hysterical, but it's dark. Some of his shit is dark. Yeah, some of his shit is dark, but he's a genius as well.

He's a genius. I love, I forgot. I'm sorry. I'm forgetting my trail racks. But yeah, I watch, I watch people's skits and get motivated. Like, if you drop a dope viral skit, I'm not, oh, I got to, I got to compete with that in my own kind of, as boxing. It goes back to the boxing. That's interesting because I feel like when we podcast, sometimes I don't like to listen to other podcasts because I don't want their thoughts or whatever they're talking about to get into my head.

And I want to try to say something different. Do you feel like when you, that doesn't happen when you watch other people's comedy? Because I would be scared. I would be like, I don't want to listen to what they say because I don't want to, you know what I mean? I don't want to sound like them. I don't want to be like them. That doesn't happen. No, not really.

Because honestly, I follow my friends online, but I do follow content creators. So you're popping up on my line. But I just, I watch it. I'm like, oh, that's funny. And then I get motivated because I just like to deal with people reality. Like if you tell me a story about what you're going through, I'm like, oh, that's a skit. And then I kind of, all my friends are like, bro. stop, you know, they don't know if I'm listening to be a genuine friend or I'm like, oh, I'm

about to make a skit out of it. I went on a date with a comedian and that's what they were like, I love to go into other people's worlds. And the whole time I kept thinking, you're going to use this as, like, I'm material. And I wish, and it was going so good. But I couldn't get past that. I was like, please don't tell me that because now I'm afraid to say anything to you because am I going to be material?

Don't know if I was. do you think that with the digital age and so many people having a platform and being able to do skits and comedy in their own way that there's an over saturation

of comedy? Hell yeah. Hell yeah is oversaturated. I want these people to fail. I want y'all, we got to start. You mean you said, don't be afraid of the boo?

Man, please be afraid of the booze. Man, start. It's so many people that, like I see, and no disrespect to them, but it's like, man, why did you put that stand-up clip out?

Why did you, you know, just posting and it's not, it doesn't move the people. They just like, because they hear consistency. Just post. Keep posting. I'm like, yeah, but if it's not funny, you're just going to keep posting. So it's just so many people that can go viral and think that they're a comic or I think they want to do content. It's just oversaturated.

But I blame the pandemic because after the pandemic, everybody was on their phones. Everybody was on their phone. So your comedy special, who's your home girl? You have a lot of the stuff that you do your skits. A lot of the skits, they're about relationships and stuff like that. I want to ask you something. A lot of comics that are coming up now, they're not ugly no more. Hmm.

Okay. The comics that we had back in the day. She made a face. Wait, wait a second. No, no, no. Because you thought about that comedian you got on the date with. He was like, boy. No, no, he's cute.

So a lot of the comics that came through back in the day, they weren't just funny. They were funny looking. Name them. I'm not going to do that. Name them. Give your top five ugliest comedians. That's what I was thinking of the top five ugly comedies. But these guys, some of them and ladies, they were funny looking.

I'm just being real. They were funny looking. Now, a lot of the comics that I'm looking at now, they're not funny looking no more. They're like they coming up and it's the whole. And I'm like, oh, okay. People would say that you're not funny looking. So what is it like being a comic in this age of comics that ain't ugly no more, man? Like we used to like our ugly, funny looking comics that had like a big forehead or the eyes were too close together.

Or I didn't mean the big forehead thing. Yeah, you look dead at him. They looked like caricature. But it's a whole. movement now. You had to say that. You had to say the big four I didn't mean to say.

It was the first thing you said. Thank you. Then I saw it. A good looking comics and a lot of people think they don't trust it. They don't trust the good looking comedian. Name a good looking comedian you've seen today. Matt Rife is good looking.

Yeah, you're right. Okay. It's a lot of other people that are coming out there and they look. I don't know how to say this. It's hard to trust a good looking stand-up comic. I don't feel that.

I do. Because to me, I feel like you on the stage talking about how tough this life is for you. And I'm like, man, shit ain't tough for you. That sounds like jealousy. They good looking and they're funny. Why? Why? Why?

Why do you have to come back to it inactment at all times? I'm just saying. I get what you're saying. When I see other people, when I see Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Paula Poundstone, all of these people. When I see them and they're saying stuff, I go, okay, that makes a lot of sense. There are a lot of people who is hard for them. to laugh at a good-looking comedian. I'm just being for real.

Never felt that. Never? No. Who is the good, who is one comic that is side-splittingly funny? And that is also super good-looking as well. I mean, there's a lot of good-looking comedians. You named-battle.

Yeah, yeah, that's personal, though. It's like, good-looking to you. Like, of course, Matt Rife, like, if you want to say, like, he's a superstar. We can be non-toxic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a good-looking. All right, so the guy's a good-looking. but normally the comedian looks like an every man but now there is

a movement I'm seeing a lot of comedians male and female who look like they could be their face could be on the cover of the magazine and it's different now and a lot of people are having trouble coming to terms with it. You gotta speak up for your

your kind bro is you Matt Rife Brandon Denise is beautiful shout out to Brandi Day. I always thought Mike Epps was cute. Mike Epps is one of the ones Like Mike Epps, you're one of the ones. Camille Corbett, good-looking comedian. Like a very, very beautiful lady. The good-looking comedians are taken over,

and I'm hearing a lot of chirping. From the ugly comedians. They don't like it. What are you saying? The ugly comedians, they talk to me. And the ugly comedians are saying, hey, these people are getting on because they're good-looking. They passing us up, not because of their reps,

but because they look. look good on TikTok and they look good here and they, they mad at y'all. I think that if you're ugly in today's age, you're broke. And there you go. Because this is, if you want to. Huh? For men too, though?

Huh? For men. You're right. You can fix a hair line. You can fix teeth. Come on, man. If you're ugly in today's age, you're broke. So therefore, you're not working hard enough to be in a good looking comedian spotlight because you have all the access, all the capability to be

good looking. But you choose not to because you want to be natural. And is that funny or not? First of all, I would like to say something real quick. I am somebody that finds beauty and everyone. Talk about it. I just do. Like, I'm from Baton Rouge.

I find beauty and everyone. I'll say some about the women in Baton Rouge and the women in the South, man. Okay. The women in the South, look, they have their standards and all of that stuff. And, you know, it was always a light-skinned nigger. And there was always the Baton Rouge, the curly hair. and all of that shit. I didn't even get a haircut,

but I will say that one thing I miss about the community that I know is that people found a way to love each other. They did. There was always pretty boys, always whatever, but people was getting together and it wasn't so much about the aesthetic. But in L.A., it just changes you.

It just changes you, man. I changed, bro. I ain't gonna hold you. You did. How did you change? Well, I grew up out here, though. Oh, you grew up out here. So I'm going to you was in Baton Rouge for it until I was 11.

Okay. Where did you live at in Baton Rouge? I lived in Meros in like a little dope, a little nice little area. Middle class. Meros, but what's that? That's not South Baton Rouge. It's right there by Baton Rouge Community College. So like government.

Government, yes. Government street. Yeah. So then it's like. Foster. Yeah. So then it's government. And then it's foster.

And then my grandmother. My grandmother is right by Baton Rouge High. Gotcha. Okay. Yes. It's over there by, it's been so long. bro but I know it's a railroad.

Yeah. Okay, got you. Yes, I grew up over there. You weren't fucking around. The other side of the tracks. Is that the railroad that you referred to? Now, here's the thing. Wait, hold on.

He talks a lot about Baton Rouge. Okay, yes, sir. And there weren't grocery stores on one. Are these the tracks you're talking about? So North Baton Rouge, right? North Baton Rouge, without talking about where it had the food desert. Now, I'll tell you this. If you had grew up crossed the tracks in Baton Rouge,

you'd have known you was there. He wasn't just doing that. I look. Fuck that. Shout out to all my cross-the-track niggas. I'm from South Baneridge. Bottom by my grandfather's, all of that stuff.

But if you had grown up in Baner Rouge across the tracks, you'd have known because all your comedy would have been about what you didn't been for. Like, cross them tracks in Baton,

you're not fucking around. Well, MBA you know boy rap about, right? Well, Boosie more so. Boose. Boosey more so. Boosie with the track life from cross the tracks.

So, back to the comedy, though. Okay, go ahead. For you, your trajectory as a comedian, as a skit maker, as an actor, what do you want to be? Is there a comedian? Is there a career? Is there a person? Do you see somebody that you go, that's the type of career that I want? At first, yeah, of course, yeah.

I see a lot of comedians. I was like, oh, that's the kind of career I want. And why, if they're getting it, why can I have it? But as far as what I want next is to be a household name. I'm so tired of people coming up to me. I was like, hey, bro, you're that guy. I'm like, man, my name is Malick. Right.

And also, just to create my own TV show, I think that TV is dying. And I think that if we can create something like insecure, like, we can be on Twitter, talk about it, discussing as a family, like power. I just want a TV show like that. That's why I'm writing right now currently to just kind of like, yo, just get people talking. That's my ideal. I love that. I agree. With Jimmy Kimmel right now and everything that's going on,

like when cancel culture was a big thing and everyone's talking about, everyone was afraid of what that meant for comedy and comedians and all of that. But now with what happened with Jimmy Kimmel and the suspension, and we don't know what's going on with that, but free speech is back at the forefront. Everyone's talking about it. For you as a comedian, are you fearful of the trajectory of comedy?

And do you feel in any way that you can't talk about things you want to talk about me. You don't really do political stuff, but do you feel anything... But there's a lot of stuff that focuses on our relationships. Sometimes some of the sisters might be kind of mad. Oh, yeah, and you're special. Very triggering. Yeah. Well, I...

So you're going to start calling me Big Head? No, I... I talked about this. He talked about this. Special. Well, hold on. Here's the thing. You women started first. Y'all started. Uh-oh. We got to bring it back off for gender wars.

Okay. But, but I don't want to get on that. No, no, no, no. No. Let him finish the question. We'll bring it back. I mean, answer the question. As far as comedy and free speech, I go to comedy shows and I go to open mics. Open mics is where they let it out.

And you would hear some stuff like, man, if you wasn't, if I wasn't here, like, I'll whip you. You know what I mean? So they get it out, but that's the nature because we all are kind of like, what you mean by that? You know, so now I think that comedy clubs are doing things I like where they yundling the phones or whatever it is. they take your phones and just kind of like put it away.

There it is. So let the comedy be the comedy. And therefore you're not on your phones. So therefore I can say whatever I want. You can record me. You know what I mean? You get your phone. If you don't like the show, you walk out and you get your phone right there.

So I love that. That's bringing free speech back into comedy. And I think now that we're getting that more people are starting to get, you know, boulder and boulder. Like, I mean, I saw I went to chocolate Sundays last night and we were saying some things on that. stage. Shout out Donnell Rollins, man, because he was saying every word that was banned. Are you don't know who that is? No, I said, I know he was. My gosh. I said I know he was. I'll tell you this, man. So funny. I'm not starting. I'm not going to start anything, but I'm saying to me, to me, Donnell,

Donnell himself, not a part of the whole. Donnell, to me, is one of the five funniest people in the world. A thousand percent. Donnell, like, it is, I know that Donnell is with Dave and all of that stuff and Dave is a goat, whatever. But Donnell, to me, I've seen Donnell go up on stage before day before anyone and murder the stage with the energy and all of that. I think he is one of the funniest people in the world. But goes back to what I'm saying. Funny. Funny voice. Funny build. Funny looking. He knows that. I say, I'm now looking at it. I'm not looking at, like, Have you out heard of CP? Yeah.

One of the funniest guys in a world. You say he's the funniest. Can I say something about CP. So I saw CP at the airport one time, right? I saw CP at the airport one time. And CP. The Mize. Funny looking?

Funny looking. I saw CP at the airport one time. And he was, he was, and this is what I talk about when you're around, when a nigger just got it, right? So I was seeing the CP at the airport. He was having, his girl was pregnant. He was having a kid. And I think he had had a couple of girls already.

And so I'm like, so you girls pregnant. And then he already had a couple of girls. He was like, before you ask, is at this point I'll take a boy with one on her. Before you ask, I take a boy one day. He ain't got to have two hands. Yeah, that's funny. He was like, yeah, I got girls.

But at this point, You know, you start off, you just want a healthy baby. He goes at this point, we're just talking. He's not on stage. He goes, at this point, I'll take a boy with one arm. I stood there, I was like, nigga, what is the problem? That's, see, that's what I'm talking about. CP, that's a funny motherfucker.

I were, the questions I'd be asking myself is, the guys that I know that are ridiculously funny, what has to happen for them to get the shots, for them to go, for them to, C.P. is funny as shit. The funniest person alive. My eyes, I know you have your guy, but CP is the funniest person. You know what it is?

He can have a conversation like how we're having. Don't have to be funny. He's funny. I think that he has that thing that Tony Baker has. Tony Baker, another funny guy. Oh, yeah. And it just goes. I'm like, where do your mind go?

Tony Baker made a joke about, like, he doesn't like, he's like, I don't like I don't like guacamole because it gets too much attention. in the 7th. What you're doing, right? Like, he just does certain, and, you know, in black standup, we talk about this all the time. You go to a black standup show, you can count on one hand how many topics are talked about. Think about that. So I like comedians when they think outside the box, when you hear somebody talk about food or onions, then therefore you'll just start seeing, well, okay, you start seeing like, oh, I'm going to start talking about food. So it's just like, if you're a trendsetter or a pioneer and you have other comedians, you start writing

like that's what goes like I don't want to hear other podcast but you start writing like different ideas and I think that might be dope because therefore you go to you want to have a plethora of topics if I know I'm about I know my I'm gonna follow van on a lineup and van is talking about I don't know driving

and I got a driving bit damn they're about to see back to back driving bits but it's our POV but at the same time you want to talk about a plethora of things that's why like people can't steal what you're talking about personal yeah so that's why it's like with the standard of freedom in speech

freedom of speech. If it's personal to you, you can't censor it. You see what I'm saying? So that's why you get the same topics because we're scared, we want to lose our careers and some of them that don't have.

So they kind of, you know, edge and start writing to be relatable. So the specials out right now. Shout to Hulu. Shout to Hulu. Shout to Hulu. All right, Hulu, y'all. Y'all, y'all better get together.

I know I'm not supposed to. No, no. No, you got. Yeah, I know, I heard. I want to ask you about that. So your shit is on Hulu. Yeah, my Hulu, yeah. They kicked Jimmy Kimmel off.

And it's mad people that are now canceling the Disney Plus and their Hulu and all of that stuff. They're boycotting it, like a target. I know, I know. They're going to like Target. So she. I said, before y'all go, watch my shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead and go.

You can go, just turn it on. You can go to work. You know what I mean? Come back and cancel. Yeah, just I said, before you go, just turn it on, you got to watch it. Stream my shit. Yep. All right.

So, I mean, the special's out. how you getting the entire thing? What's next? What's next is I'm on tour right now currently. On tour. You can catch me. I mean, I'm on tour this weekend. Where am I?

Oh, Riley, North Carolina. That's nice comedy club. Yeah, we just, because we got the deal so late. I'm sorry. And then I'm in Sacramento and Houston for AfroTech weekend. Just a lot of dates. Yeah, this is my first time going to Afro Tech. Oh, it's huge.

Oh, I heard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have a good time. Man. Also, what else am I doing currently? Figuring out me internally, you know, like now it's... Yeah, yeah, because it's like now I'm at a different point of my life where I'm like, all right, well, this is... I'm starting to get recognition from the hard work I put in.

So, you know, I'm asking myself questions about, you know, like you just said, what I want next or what's next for me? What's the next chapter? So I've been asking myself a lot of, like, internal things. So, yeah, that's my career blossom. you don't want to have a be up there with a career and not know who you are because that's how you end up at a ditty party. Oh. I love the reflection.

Love the vulnerability. Tell everybody where they can find you, where they can follow you, all of that. They won't follow you there. We know you won't be there. Sure, parties might be coming back. Tell them where they can find you.

See, he's. But I can't. Anyway, you can find me at all social media platforms, Malik, M-L-I-K- Bazel, B-A-Z I-L-E, as all across every platform. And yeah, just funny content. And I hope you can just come with me along with me on this journey. There you go. All right, brother.

We appreciate you joining us. Thank you so much for having me. This is high learning. Yeah, I love that. Thank you. For sure. She gave me to do handshake. God, who are you?

When zone you before you even got it? Y'all got me with the death. She had me with the death. She's like, I, nigg. Yo, I, man, bro. Get your sister, bro. I'm saying it goes, really. All right.

This is a super long episode. Pause. They like that, though. They like the long episode. So you're welcome. You're welcome, guys. They like a robust episode. Because girth is more important.

Some say. Take us out. That's what they say. Gerth, whatever. Wait, before you do, take us out, there is breaking news that Jimmy Kimmel's coming back tomorrow. Wouldn't you know it? Going along with the program.

didn't work. Well, wait, wait, Donnie, what are they saying, though? That's just it? And who's reporting it? A deadline variety. ABC announced they said last Wednesday we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.

We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy and after these conversations. We reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday. Wow. I should call them right now. Wow. Oh, wait, I was going to say something. Oh, has anybody on like the far right responded? Has Trump said anything on truth social?

Do we know? This just broke like three minutes ago. So I'm sure by the time this comes out, that will have things. Well, we'll be locked in. We'll be talking about it. We'll definitely be talking about that. Maybe even do an emergency podcast. Because my question is, and we were going to talk about this.

actually glad we didn't just about updates with Kimmel and kind of the falling out and the response. But what is the show going to look like? I think that's the big question. I'm sure there were some, there, there had to be negotiated back and forth is in any way. We'll know from the first monologue. If I can't imagine, guys, I can't imagine that any promises were made to avoid any topics. I, that, I would be fucking shocked if that. were the case. And yeah, I can't imagine either. And I'm going to throw that in. I said I wasn't going to talk about the view before, but I will throw that in. See, I think the timing of it all makes sense because the view did not talk about Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday. It may have happened

after the show and they do tape the show on Friday on Thursday for Friday. But they came back today and they talked about the FCC and they talked about everything. Now it's being announced also. And they said, did you think we weren't going to say anything? Did you think that they silenced us? Yes, we did and a lot of people did. And I even know how it were. I totally knew that they pre-tate the Friday show. But I still thought, oh, they're having conversations. Their show particularly has been threatened by the FCC, by far right people, by conservative commentators like Scott Jennings.

They're on watch. So then for them to come out today and say, did you think that they were going to silence us and we weren't going to talk about it? and now Jimmy Kimmel coming out, it kind of, or coming back, it sounds like ABC is like, we're ready for this fight. They better be. Because Trump has been applauding them.

There are so many things that are, there are so many things that we can talk about more in depth than Jimmy Kimmel live coming back in terms of like, you know, all different types of things that threaten people's lives everywhere. But I would hate for you guys not to see this as a win. Yeah, that's a win.

I would hate for you guys to think that preserving free speech and subverting the FCC's and Donald Trump's ability to pick and choose who's on TV and who says what, I hate for you guys to think that this is not a win, particularly if the show comes back in exactly the same shape than it was in before, which once again, I would be shocked if it didn't. I was letting you guys know that the go along, the move of, don't listen to that.

Fight. Cancel your Disney. The Mandalorian and Grogu trailer just came out today. And I'm glad. But you didn't cancel. Let me just also say, because we didn't say this last time, I'm also happy for it because so many people would have lost their jobs. We talk about the person whose name is on the show, who's the front facing figure of the show. but there are so many people,

hundreds of people who put this show together every night, every weekday night. And they would have lost their jobs and with late night. There would have been nowhere to go. We saw it with Stephen Colbert's show.

So I'm also happy that people will not have to lose their jobs. Yes, take these caps off, but do not stop learning, feel encouraged, brave, and go and be fucking rebellious somewhere. Disrupting.

This, go. Nigger, what, nigga? Huh? Who are you talking to? This is you. Who are you talking to? Huh? Even if you got to call your big brother on them.

Remember we used to do that back in the day? Yeah, I used to do that. Hey, hey, okay? I'll fuck you up. But if it's three of y'all, I'll go get my big brother. Huh? This is you. Huh?

Fuck that shit. We ain't going along with that shit. Fuck that shit. Fuck it. Fuck them. That's all the emotion that you had pent up all podcasts. Three hours later. is coming out. Take us out. Take us out. Take us out. Don't stop learning. I'm barely to June.

I'm Rachel Lou and Lindsay. Bye, guys.